The 90th floor of Valeska Tower in Canary Wharf, London, was usually the place where world-shaking decisions for the European stock market were made. But tonight, the 500-square-meter space held nothing but a haunting silence. The scent of expensive mahogany and lingering Cuban cigars had evaporated, replaced by the sharp, stinging stench of antiseptic and encroaching death.
Arthur Valeska—the man dubbed "The Wolf of the Thames"—sat in his favorite leather chair. His once-sturdy frame had shriveled, draped in silk pajamas that felt far too heavy for bones made brittle by terminal cancer. Before him, a giant glass wall displayed the majestic, flickering lights of London. The city lay at his feet, yet Arthur felt as though he were drowning at the bottom of the darkest ocean.
His trembling hand reached for a dark brown envelope recently delivered by his private attorney, Thomas. It contained the results of a private investigation he had commissioned a year ago—a search for the truth regarding the tragedy twenty years prior that had shattered his soul.
With labored breaths, Arthur opened it. He read the report page by page under the dim glow of the desk lamp.
"No... this can't be," he whispered. His voice was raspy, broken by a cough that brought up traces of blood.
The report stated with irrefutable evidence: the car accident that killed his wife, Elena, and their young son, Leo, was no mere technical failure. Elena had fled that night out of terror. She was trying to escape debt collectors hired by Arthur's business rival—a man Arthur had provoked with his own arrogance. Worse still, Elena was pregnant with their second child, a fact Arthur had never known.
And the reason Elena was on such a desolate road at three in the morning? Because Arthur had driven her out after a violent argument fueled by his blind ambition. He had chosen a merger meeting over celebrating Leo's fifth birthday.
"I killed them," Arthur moaned. Tears he had dammed up for decades to maintain his image as a "Man of Steel" finally spilled, soaking the expensive stationery. "All this wealth... this building... it was all built on their blood."
He stared at a faded photo on his desk. Elena smiling shyly, and Leo holding a cheap wooden toy car. It was the last photo taken before Arthur succumbed to his greed. Back then, he viewed love as a burden and poverty as a disease to be cured at any cost—even his conscience.
Suddenly, Arthur's chest felt as if it had been struck by a sledgehammer. An excruciating pain radiated from his left arm to his heart. He reached for the phone to call for help, but his hand only knocked a crystal glass of expensive whiskey, sending it shattering across the floor.
Just like my life, he thought bitterly. Broken and useless.
His vision began to fade. Oxygen seemed to vanish from the room. In his final seconds of consciousness, Arthur didn't remember the billion-pound deals he had won. He didn't remember his honorary titles. He only remembered the terror in Elena's eyes as he slammed the door ten years ago, and the sound of Leo's voice calling for "Papa"—a cry he had ignored.
"God... if You truly exist," he whispered in his weakening heart. "Do not give me heaven. I don't deserve it. Give me punishment... or give me just one second to say I'm sorry. Just one second..."
Darkness lunged. Absolute cold enveloped the billionaire's body. The heartbeat that had been the engine of the Valeska empire finally stopped. Arthur Valeska died in absolute solitude, surrounded by gold that couldn't buy a single second of peace.
The sensation was bizarre.
Instead of eternal cold, Arthur felt a searing heat. His nose caught a scent that was familiar yet long lost to his memory: the smell of slightly burnt toast, cheap detergent, and the distinct dampness of an old flat on the outskirts of London.
Noise drifted in from outside—the honk of a red bus and the shouts of neighbors arguing.
Arthur's eyes snapped open with a violent jolt. He gasped, his hands clutching bedsheets that felt coarse—not the Egyptian silk he was used to. He stared at a peeling ceiling with water stains in the corner.
"Is this hell?" he muttered.
He tried to sit up and was stunned to see his hands. They were no longer wrinkled and pale. The skin was taut, the muscles full, though there were small scars on his knuckles from hard labor. He scrambled out of the creaking spring bed and ran to a cracked mirror in the corner.
The man in the mirror was him. But it was a twenty-seven-year-old Arthur Valeska. His black hair was messy, and his eyes were sharp but carried signs of immense exhaustion.
He looked at a small calendar nailed to the wooden wall. May 12, 2010.
Arthur's heart pounded, nearly exploding from his chest. "2010? This is... this is before everything was destroyed."
Suddenly, the flimsy bathroom door creaked open. A woman stepped out, drying her hair with a thin towel. Arthur's breath hitched. His lungs seemed to stop functioning.
"Arthur? You're awake?" The voice was soft, but carried a tremor of fear and exhaustion.
Elena.
She was alive. She stood there in a faded cotton nightgown that had been washed countless times. She wasn't yet as beautiful as she would be after the plastic surgeries or expensive jewelry of the future, but to him now, Elena looked like an angel descended from heaven. Her face showed signs of sleep deprivation, and her eyes didn't dare meet Arthur's directly.
In his previous life, this was the morning Arthur had barked at her because she couldn't find his "lucky" tie—an argument that ended with Arthur disappearing for three days to chase his first stock speculation.
"Elena..." Arthur's voice broke.
Elena flinched slightly, her shoulders tensing as if bracing for a verbal assault. "I'm sorry, breakfast is just toast and leftover jam from yesterday. I... I'll borrow some money from Rose later this afternoon for dinner."
Arthur didn't answer. He stepped forward quickly. Elena closed her eyes, shrinking back, expecting her husband to be angry over their poverty. But what she felt was not a slap or a harsh word, but a desperate, trembling embrace.
Arthur buried his face in the crook of her neck, inhaling the scent of cheap soap he had missed so dearly. He sobbed like a child.
"I'm sorry... Elena, I'm so sorry," he wept.
Elena froze. Her hands, rough from washing too many dishes, hung suspended in the air, unsure of what to do. "Arthur? Are... are you sick? Did you have a nightmare?"
"Yes," Arthur replied through his tears. "I dreamed of a world where I had everything, but I lost you. I don't want to go back there. I won't let it happen again."
In the corner of the room, a toddler appeared, rubbing his sleepy eyes. He was holding a wooden toy car with a wheel that was nearly falling off.
"Papa's crying?" little Leo's voice broke the silence.
Arthur released Elena and knelt before his son. Little Leo, who in the future had died harboring a grudge against his father, now stood before him with pure innocence. Without hesitation, Arthur pulled Leo into a hug, kissing the top of his head over and over.
"Papa's okay, Leo. Papa's just... Papa's just so happy to see you both."
Elena watched the scene with a mix of confusion and dread. To her, this sudden change in her usually cold and ambitious husband was unnatural. She feared Arthur had lost his mind under the pressure of their mounting debts.
But for Arthur, this was an opportunity that logic or science could never provide. He carried the memories of decades of failure. He knew which stocks would soar tomorrow, he knew the technologies that would change the world, and he knew the traitors who would stab him in the back.
But more than all that business acumen, he knew the most important thing of all:
This time, his crown would not be built on the tears of his family. He would build an empire in London, he would become the wealthiest man in Europe, but he would do it while holding Elena's hand and carrying Leo in his arms.
"Elena," Arthur stood, his eyes now projecting a different fire—not the fire of greed, but of pure resolve. "From today on, everything changes. I promise you, you will never have to borrow money again. And I will never leave you alone again."
Elena could only stand in silence, looking at her husband as if he had just been born anew. She didn't dare believe it yet, but for the first time in a long time, a small flicker of hope crept into her withered heart.
Arthur turned toward the window, staring at the grey London sky. 2010 was the beginning of both crisis and opportunity. And he, Arthur Valeska, had returned from death to conquer it.