Jayjay's POV
New York never asks how you're feeling.It only asks how fast you can move.
From the glass walls the city stretches beneath me like a disciplined machine—steel veins, pulsing lights, lives reduced to schedules and purpose. I like it this way. Distance makes things manageable. Height makes the past feel smaller.
This building carries my name now.
Mariano Global.
From the forty-seventh floor of the Mariano Empire Building, the city looks smaller than it should—lights disciplined into grids, traffic reduced to patterns, people to motion. I've learned to like this view. Distance has a way of turning chaos into something manageable.
My office is quiet. Not empty—quiet. There's a difference.
People say power changes you.They're wrong. Power only reveals what survival already taught you.
Dark wood desk. Glass walls. Steel accents. Everything intentional. Everything earned. The name JayJay Mariano is engraved discreetly on the side panel, not for pride, but for reminder. This isn't borrowed power. This is mine.
"Ma'am," my assistant says gently, stepping in with her tablet. "The Zurich projections are ready, and legal wants confirmation on the Aces' involvement."
"Send legal my approval," I reply without looking up. "And tell Zurich to proceed. No delays."
She nods. No hesitation. People don't hesitate around me—not because they're afraid, but because they trust precision.
I am kind to everyone here. That's deliberate. Cruel leaders burn fast. Fair ones last.
My father taught me that.
Jaspher Mariano—my blood, my backbone, my definition of control. He never raised his voice to demand obedience. He made silence do the work. When I stepped into this empire, he didn't soften it for me. He sharpened me instead.
"Ms. Mariano," my assistant says softly, entering the office with her tablet held close to her chest. "The board is waiting."
I noded, smooth my blazer, and rise. The reflection in the glass follows me—sharp eyes, neutral expression, posture trained not to yield.
They see a CEO.
They don't see the girl who once thought love could be an escape.
The boardroom is quiet when I enter. Respect has a sound—it's the absence of noise. I take my seat at the head of the table, fingers resting lightly on polished wood.
The meeting begins on time. It always does.
"Let's begin," I say, voice steady, measured. "We're revising the Singapore contracts. No delays. No compromises."
They listen. They always do.
Board members. Executives. Numbers that could choke a weaker person. I lead them through projections, expansions, and contingency plans with calm certainty. They listen. They take notes. They don't interrupt.
I'm not cruel. That's important. Fear builds empires quickly, but loyalty keeps them standing. My father taught me that long before he taught me strategy, long before blood became something I learned not to flinch at.
The meeting runs clean. Efficient. When it ends, I assign tasks, acknowledge effort, and dismiss them with a nod. Kindness costs nothing—especially when it's genuine.
"We move quietly," I say. "We grow clean. And we protect what's ours."
Simple. Clear. Mariano.
As the room empties, I remain behind, fingers resting lightly on the desk. Through the glass wall, I can see the city moving again—unaware, unbothered.
Cold doesn't mean heartless. — It means controlled.
People think I became like this after the betrayal. They're wrong.
I became like this after I learned that love, when misplaced, can be weaponized.
My eyes drift briefly to the framed photograph on the shelf behind me. Old. Slightly faded. A group of teenagers in uniforms, pretending the world couldn't touch them.
HVIS. Section E.
A memory I don't visit often—but it visits me anyway.
We were heirs trying to be ordinary. Laughing too loudly in corridors. Sharing secrets we didn't know would cost us later. Section E wasn't special to anyone else, but to us, it was freedom disguised as routine.
Some of them are gone now.- Some changed beyond recognition.
Some still haunt the spaces between my thoughts.
I don't linger. Nostalgia is dangerous.
The tablet on my desk lights up—updates from J4Aces.
My other empire.
The mansion downtown—hidden, fortified, alive with loyalty. The Aces don't exist on paper. They exist in action. Four of us. Three men. And me.
They don't call me CEO there.They call me Queen.
No one knows who leads them. Not yet.
That will change when I turn twenty-two.
My phone buzzes again—this time with a message I don't need to read to know the sender.
The Worst Face ever💖-
Babyyy Sistahh, are you alive or married to your desk again?
Yeah, It's Percy Rey Mariano.
I almost smiled.
Percy thinks he's the most handsome man in any room he enters—and somehow, he says it with enough confidence that people start believing him. He's loud where I'm quiet. Warm where I'm sharp. Annoying in a way that feels like home.
Working, I reply. Try doing it sometime.
His response is instant.
Rude. Come home. Dad's in one of his "empire-reflecting" moods.
Of course he is. Family has a way of pulling you back—no matter how high you climb.
I shut down my system, gather my coat, and take one last look at the city. Somewhere out there are people who hurt me once. Somewhere are people who still don't know who I really am.
Good.- Let them underestimate me.
I step into the elevator, doors sliding shut with a soft click.
The girl I used to be never made it out of HVIS intact.The woman I became?
"She built empires from silence—and learned how to bleed without letting it show."