All Chapters of Bound by Fortune :A Scandalous Heir Billionaire Romance : Chapter 111 - Chapter 120

The victory in the boardroom was a fleeting, insulated one. It was behind the soundproofed walls of the forty-second floor, a secret shared between him, Joe, and a number of chastened directors. But outside, in the universe fed by pixels and ink, the battle was gathering into a fire.The media, sensing blood in the water after Melissa's "unholy union" interview, had moved on from speculation to outright condemnation. The nuanced challenges of corporate leadership were irrelevant. The complicated reality of his and Joe's relationship was immaterial. The story had been boiled down to a raw, easily digestible fable of good and evil, and Davidson had been cast as the arch-villain.He committed the sin of checking. In spite of Joe's explicit command, in spite of his own better judgment, he opened his tablet over a solitary breakfast. The firestorm hit him with full force.The headlines were no longer merely scandalous. They were vicious.THE USURPER IN THE PENTHOUSE: How a Deviant Overthre

The signed Geneva pact lay on Davidson's New York desk, its silent, heavy presence. It was not a saber to be brandished, but a shield to be laid. International flank secure, at a price. The home-front threat could now be met. It was time to stop playing defense against Victor Brandt.Davidson walked to his new office window—the corner office beside Joe's, a place secretly prepared for him and now uncomfortably his own. Below, the city pulsed with life none the wiser regarding the silent war being waged in the sky-scraping power fortresses. Victor's moves had been covert, underhanded: the spliced photographs, the subtle planting of doubt among the board, the financial manipulations. These were the tactics of a saboteur, and not an invader. It was now time to push him into the open.He pushed the intercom. "Eleanor, I need the complete list of all joint venture accounts and shared channels of logistics whereby Brandt Energy has access through our systems. I need it within the next ten mi

The storm of whispers, the daggers in the dark—all disappeared behind the soundproofed doors of the law offices of Sterling & Graves. Here, in a dark English oak-paneled room and heavy with the aroma of beeswax and old money, the only sound was the soft scratch of a pen. This was not a sanctuary of scandal and passion. This was a site where legacies were codified into law, where great riches flowed from one generation to the next with chilling certainty.Joe Brian sat at the head of a massive table, Davidson to his right. Across from them were three men: Joseph Sterling, patriarch of the firm, whose age totaled centuries, not years; a tax professional with the pallor of a man who lived by fluorescent light; and a trusts and estates lawyer who seemed born in a three-piece suit.In front of them, on the table, were papers thicker than most books. These weren't the secret succession paper Davidson had signed all those months before, or the Geneva civil union papers. This was the final, i

The summons was not from a publicist, but from Joe himself, his low, measured voice over the secure line. "It's time. Be ready in an hour."No words were necessary. The planned silence, the careful drumbeat of Davidson's solo performances at events like the Houston symposium—it had all been arranged. The building had been done, brick by excruciating brick. Now, the cornerstone was to be laid.An hour went by, and Davidson sat with Joe in the silent broadcasting studio of Brison Tower. The studio was cold and sterile, entirely black soundproofing and blinding lights. One lens of a camera stared at them, an unblinking cyclops which would broadcast their image to the entire world. There was no audience, no interviewer. Just the two of them, standing in front of a plain blue background, the Bison logo silently embedded in the corner.Joe had fought for this. No filters, no moderators. The message would be delivered directly, untranslated.He looked at Davidson, a final, unspoken query in

The helicopter ride out to the estate was one world transitioning into another. Down on the ground, Manhattan was a mad circuit board of light and drive, the source of the perpetual buzz that was the background music to their lives. But once the helicopter headed north, the city's radiance dissipated, being replaced by the deep, dark blackness of the Hudson Valley. The whir of the rotors filled their ears alone, a machine heartbeat that accelerated them from the fighting.They landed on the private pad at the property line. The air Davidson inhaled when he stepped out was cold and fresh, redolent with pine and frost- bitten ground. It was quiet that was palpable after the ceaseless, low- key moan of the city. Joe's home here was no glass-and-steel skyscraper like the penthouse, but a low-slung, timber-and-stone affair built into the slope of a mountain, a place that could ride out storms, not display opulence.They didn't utter a word. They walked together along a road of shattered gr