All Chapters of Bound by Fortune :A Scandalous Heir Billionaire Romance : Chapter 201 - Chapter 210

The world believed Joe Brian was knocking on death's door. The tale, fed by the chilling photograph and the hospital's tight-lipped "no comment," had congealed into accepted fact. Obituaries were being drafted, and the financial markets twitched with a volatile combination of fear and opportunity.In his private hospital room, Joe was far from dead, but he was playing the part with the skill of a master strategist. He allowed his voice to remain weak, his movements sluggish. He'd had the lights left dim, and the only calls he accepted were from Davidson, his voice in those moments barely a whisper. It was a performance designed to lure the enemy out into the open.Victor Brandt took the bait.### He didn't wait for a funeral. He didn't wait for a prognosis. He struck with the swift, ruthless efficiency of a predator sensing a wounded alpha. Within twenty-four hours of Joe's collapse, an emergency meeting of the Brian Energy board was convened to order. The ostensible purpose: "To assu

The Brian Energy jet came into Dubai at the peak of the day's heat, the air outside the cabin window shimmering like a mirage. The city was a monument to brashness, a glass and steel forest looming towards the sky in the middle of the desert. It was a city that knew power, that respected the raw, unadulterated force of will it took to rebuild a world. Or at least, so Davidson had thought. He had come to the Global Energy Summit as Joe's substitute, his sword and buckler. While Joe recuperated, though stubbornly so, this was Davidson's time to prove stability, to show the world that the empire wasn't only secure, but thriving under its new, dual leadership. He wore a suit more costly than many cars, stood stiff as a ramrod, and his briefing books were memorized.He was prepared for rough bargaining, for pointed questions about volatility in the market, for the cut and thrust of top-level diplomatic bargaining.He was not prepared for the snickering.It began in the foyer of the Burj Al

The stillness in the penthouse was alive, breathed in and breathed out by the city below. It was not the stiff, icicle silence of their estrangement, nor the charged waiting silence on the threshold of a storm. This was a deep, resonant quiet, made and felt. The soft, faraway wail of a siren was not an alarm, but a lullaby. The glittering grid of light was not a challenge, but a witness.Davidson leaned against the floor-to-ceiling window, water glass loosely gripped in one hand. He had shed the armor of suit and tie for dark sweatpants and a lightweight cotton t-shirt. The day's triumph—the yelling markets, the paralyzed analysts, Victor's financial evisceration—pulsed through his veins, but the adrenaline had smoothed from something sharp and predatory into a soothing, thrumming warmth. He had won. Not a battle, but the war of his own credibility.He heard the soft patter of bare feet on slick concrete. He did not need to turn around. He felt Joe's presence as a shift in atmosphere,

The atmosphere in the private auditorium was thick enough to be tasted—a metal alloy of anticipation, skepticism, and ozone from a hundred charging devices. The financial press had convened, summoned by a terse, last-minute press release from Brian Energy promising a "statement regarding the future of the company." They were expecting capitulation. A grave Davidson Ekon, perhaps with a wan Joe Brian at his side, to present a strategic review or, God forbid, a proposal to consider Victor Brandt's tender offer. They expected the final, whining act of the Scandalous Heir.What they got was a king.Davidson walked onto the bare stage alone. There was no podium, no teleprompter, no shield. He wore a dark, impeccably tailored suit, but it was his posture that commanded the room. He stood tall, shoulders back, head high. The fatigue and stress of these past few months were still drawn in the faint lines under his eyes, but now they were framed on a face of such profound, unshakeable convicti

Midnight. The penthouse was a glass and steel island suspended in a sea of city lights, its usual austerity a shadowed command center. The only light came from one large screen, which cast a pale blue pallor on the faces of the five people around the central table. This was no longer a boardroom. This was a bunker. And these were Davidson's general staff.Himself, of course. At the front, not sitting, but leaning forward, his knuckles grinding into the polished wood. To his right sat Clara Jensen, her sharp features cut from obsidian in the dim light, a stack of legal briefs her ammunition. To his left sat Anya Sharma, her fingers flying across a tablet, her mind a nexus of media trends and public opinion. There was Mark Thorne, a veteran, retired CFO Joe had trusted implicitly, pulled out of quiet Florida retirement for this final battle. And finally, to Davidson's surprise and heartfelt gratitude, Isabelle Rossi, her presence a silent, powerful statement that all the old guard had n