Semua Bab Bound by Fortune :A Scandalous Heir Billionaire Romance : Bab 161 - Bab 170

The story did not hit like a wave, but like a simultaneous explosion on all platforms, in all corners of the world. The leak of the pictures of the Alaskan ritual was the fuse, but the media machinery of the world was the powder keg. Davidson Ekon was not a man anymore overnight, but a Rorschach test for the world's anxieties about power, sex, money, and death.He saw the first hard copy in a newsstand, a brutal, full-color attack. The cover of the New York Post was a tabloid masterpiece. It featured the photo of him putting the ring on Joe's finger, but cropped in such a way that it looked like Joe was a passive, weak recipient. The headline, in block letters, screamed: HEIR TODAY, GROOMED TOMORROW? Inside the Billionaire's Deathbed Wedding to His Boy-Toy Protégé.The poison dart was the word "groomed." It took the wealthy, years-long process of mentorship and love and reduced it to a clinical, predatory term. It made Joe a creepy puppeteer and Davidson an empty, manufactured product

The boardroom of Brian Empire Holdings had witnessed decades of subtle power plays, of quiet coups and murmured assassinations. But nothing like this storm.Davidson came in alone. Joe was home, asleep under the watchful eye of a private nurse, his last energies spent on his public revolt. The empty chair to Davidson's right was no longer just an absence; it was a void. He felt himself being pulled into it as he took his seat at the head of the table, the weight of Joe's absence more crushing than any gavel.Victor Brandt didn't wait for the meeting to be called to order. He launched the opening salvo before Davidson's chair had finished sliding."This circus stops now," Victor spat, his voice slicing through the tense silence. He slapped a tablet onto the polished mahogany, where Joe's trembling, defiant face from the press conference was frozen. That… performance… was the final act of a man no longer in control of his faculties. And you," he sneered, turning his anger on Davidson, "

Darkness seeped into the penthouse, a heavy, choking velvet that obscured the normal twinkling mosaic of the city. Davidson had sent the staff home, quieted the phones, and stood guard in the middle of the living room, the sole light of the chilly, unforgiving glare of the financial monitors. The figures were a dirge. Brian Empire Holdings: down 31%. Bering Energy: a specter, down 92%, its value destroyed.The ticker tape was a requiem for his leadership, rolling incessantly, each line a body blow to the empire Joe had built.The initial, icy-water shock of the crash had faded, replaced by a raw, nervous exhaustion. He'd passed the initial few hours in a reactive, frantic panic—calls to lawyers, to the loyalists remaining on the board, to the big banks' chief executives. The answers were all the same, wrapped in varying degrees of pity and professional horror: there was nothing to do until the markets opened. The trap was shut. The jaws were closed. He'd rehearse the scene in his mind

The penthouse had been redecorated, subtly but irrevocably, as a sickroom. The furniture, still austerity-luxurious, was not the site of transformation, but the air. The air, once charged with ambition and power, was now subtly sweet with the scent of illness—a compound of antiseptic, medication, and that particular, clinging odor of a body slowly turning against itself.The enormous room, designed to seat heads of state and bargain for billion-dollar deals, had shrunk to the space of a single motorized hospital bed that stood beside the window. Davidson stood just inside the doorway, his hand still on the doorknob, surveying the scene. A private nurse, a silent-efficient woman called Anya, was adjusting the drip of a clear IV line that snaked its way into a port held in place with tape on the back of Joe's hand. Joe was propped up in pillows, his eyes closed. The morning sunlight, which he had always ordered about like a servant, seemed to attack him now, revealing the frightening tr

The hotel suite was different. Larger, more opulent, with a view that swept over the city skyline. A victor's suite, not a plotting room. Victor Brandt stood at the window, a glass of mineral water in his hand, his back to her. He didn't turn when she entered, a game of silence that chilled Melissa's skin.She clutched the slim, expensive leather briefcase to her chest like a shield. Inside it was the last of it. The final, absolute severance. The final nail in the coffin of the life she had shared with Davidson Ekon.“You’re late,” Victor said, his voice echoing faintly in the spacious room."Can't be rushed," she said, her voice stretched thinner than she intended it to be. She walked to the large, new desk and set the briefcase down on it with a soft thud. The latches clicking had a metallic sound that seemed to reverberate in the quiet like gunfire.Victor finally turned. His eyes went first to the briefcase, a hunter's eyes locked on something trapped. "Is that everything?""It's