All Chapters of Bound by Fortune :A Scandalous Heir Billionaire Romance : Chapter 141 - Chapter 150

The family court was a different kind of war zone than the corporate boardrooms Davidson was accustomed to. Arms here were not proxy votes or financial projections, but the inflections of a child's voice, the ripping tension of a practised sentence, and the dumb, accusing weight of a photograph. The air reeked of lemon polish and desperation. Davidson sat with his counsel, Arthur Crighton, the gleaming table a mile-wide chasm between him and his children. Melissa, her lawyers clustered around her, was a vision of wounded innocence, her eyes fixed forward, never once catching him.The judge, a woman whose face was weary from the toll of a thousand broken families, heard the case with restrained solemnity. The hearing began with dry legal jargon, but everyone knew that the piece de resistance for the day was the testimony of the children. When the bailiff led Mark and Lily out a side door, Davidson's breath caught. They looked so small, dwarfed by the high ceilings and the weight of the

The storm that had been building all day finally broke over the Manhattan skyline. Thunder echoed in the distance, a low ominous growl that seemed to vibrate through the steel skeleton of the penthouse. Inside, the silence was thicker and more meaningful than any sound the storm could ever make.The digital fallout of Anya Petrova's exposé had congealed into a grim, persistent reality. The phone calls had slowed from a panicked avalanche to a trickle of grim updates—a board member "seeking urgent clarification," a key investor in Geneva "expressing deep concern." The headlines had crystallized into fact in the public consciousness. Davidson Ekon was no longer a businessman; he was a scandal.Davidson stood at the window, watching lightning streak across the Hudson River. He was emptied out, scraped bare by the day's humiliation. The rage that had propelled him earlier was incinerated, and in its stead was a cold, leaden residue of resignation. He sensed Joe's presence behind him, a st

Joe's study desk, made of mahogany, felt cold beneath Davidson's hands, a vast, shining sea of betrayal. It had been an hour since the board meeting broke up, but the memory of Samuel Cho's raised hand still hung in the air, a motion that had torn the universe asunder. The motion had passed. An outside chairman was rushing in. The balance of power had officially, irretrievably, shifted into Victor Brandt's hands.Joe had retreated into the innermost silence of the penthouse, a strategic hibernation that Davidson was aware of. He was considering, measuring, searching for the hidden fulcrum that had undone Samuel. But Davidson couldn't afford silence. Silence was where rumors incubated and alliances rusted. Silence was Victor's victory lap.So, as midnight draped itself around a sleeping Manhattan, Davidson Ekon began to make calls. The heir apparent was reduced to a supplicant in the night.The first one he called was Charles Mbeki, the one who had voted with them, whose loyalty had se

The artificial lighting of the executive garage of the Brian Empire hummed a dull, sterile tune, their blue-white cold light creating long, twisted shadows that appeared to adhere to the slick concrete like stains. It smelled of gasoline, upscale car wax, and the wet, metallic chill that pervaded every subterranean level of the city. It was one of passage, not of dwelling; a lifeless tunnel where people moved from their contained automobiles to the contained banks of elevators, shut away from the world and from each other.Davidson Ekon walked alone along this vacant, reflective canyon. The clang of phony laughter and broken glass from the dinner party still echoed in his head, a discordant counterpoint to the profound quiet Joe had abandoned. Joe's ashen, gaunt face in the rear of the Rolls-Royce was seared onto his retina. The king's gesture of rebellion had been a piece of theater, but it cost dearly off-stage.The descent in the elevator had been a trip into another world. The bra

The first thing Davidson was conscious of was not light, but sound. The gentle, metronomic whisper of Joe's breathing, a sound that had become the metronome of his life, the tempo of his world's stability. It was slower this morning, deeper, as if with each respiration a conscious effort was being made. He kept his eyes closed, clinging to the temporary serenity of the half-darkness, to the warmth of the body beside him. During these precious moments, he could make believe the world outside the penthouse didn't exist. There was no Victor, no betrayals, no suffocating press. There was just this: the scent of linen and slumber, the hard pressure of the man he loved.The illusion shattered as he opened his eyes.The bedroom was flooded with the pale, thinned gold of a dawn winter. And there, on Joe's side of the bed, leaning against a water glass on the bedside table, was a crisp, legal-sized manila envelope. His name was scrawled on it in Joe's sharp, unforgiving script. Davidson.A chi