Lex drifted into sleep, but his mind didn't rest.
The past pulled him under.
It was happening again. The moment that had shattered his world.
He was twenty-one. Months from graduating. On the verge of everything.
And then, in the span of an hour, his entire life burned.
The office was too bright. Too sterile. Too cold. The kind of white light that made everything feel clinical—like a place where bad news was delivered in neat little files.
Lex sat at the head of the polished conference table, his tie loosened, shirt sleeves rolled up. The papers were in front of him. Thick stacks of legal documents.
His name was on every single one.
His signature. His approval.
But he had never signed them.
Lex exhaled, flipping through the pages. Barnie had used him.
Page after page of risky, overleveraged real estate acquisitions. The same deals he had tried to flag months ago. The same properties that had never made sense.
And now, they were his.
Lex exhaled slowly, fingers tightening around the edges of the paper. "How bad is it?"
Across from him, Elias Marr adjusted his glasses, his face unreadable.
"Bad."
Lex looked up sharply. "Fixable?"
Elias hesitated for just a second. And that was all the answer Lex needed.
His stomach turned. It was over.
Lex leaned back, exhaling through his nose. "How long have you known?"
Elias folded his hands. "I suspected. But I only confirmed it this morning."
Lex's jaw tightened. "And your solution?"
Elias finally sat down, voice calm. "We delay. Shift the narrative. Use the board to buy time, keep you out of the direct line of fire." His gaze was steady. "But Lex—this won't go away cleanly. Barnie built the trap too well."
Lex exhaled, rubbing his temple. "So I just sit here and take the hit?"
Elias shook his head. "No. We control how hard it lands."
A long silence.
Then—
"Lex."
Lex turned, and—his mother was there.
Sitting beside him, her small, delicate fingers wrapped tightly around his hand.
She looked the same as she always did—poised, elegant, but exhausted. The weight of the scandal already pressing down on her.
Her other hand smoothed over the newspaper sitting on the table. His name was on the front page.
LEX LATHAM: THE FALL OF A FINANCIAL PRODIGY?
Lex barely glanced at it. He already knew the story inside.
His mother's grip tightened. "We will get through this."
Lex swallowed, forcing a smirk. "They're just headlines, Mom."
She smiled, but it was fragile. Hollow.
Lex had always thought his mother was untouchable. The kind of woman who could exist above rumors, scandals, whispers.
But now? Now she was just a mother watching her son's life be dismantled in real-time.
Lex squeezed her hand back.
He didn't care about the press. The board. The lawsuits. He just cared that she still believed in him.
She did.
But she was breaking.
And then—
Lex woke up.
The memory burned through him, raw and vivid, like it had just happened yesterday.
His skin was damp with sweat, his pulse slow but heavy, his fingers curled into the sheets like he was bracing for something that had already happened.
It wasn't just the memory of that day.
It was everything that followed.
Elias's funeral.
Lex stood in the rain, the cold biting into his skin, but he didn't move.
The world blurred—black umbrellas, somber faces, whispers. The sound of raindrops hitting polished wood.
He had barely listened to the service. Couldn't.
Elias had been the only man left who had fought for him. Who had tried to clean up the mess Barnie made.
And in the end? It wasn't enough.
Lex had lost. Elias had paid the price.
The hospital.
Lex sat beside his mother's bed, the steady beep of the machines the only sound in the room.
She was so still. So small.
She had always been poised, untouchable—until she wasn't.
Until the weight of the scandal, the stress, the untreated illness finally stole her from him.
Lex had spent years building fortunes. Years chasing power.
But when it mattered?
He couldn't even buy more time.
She died in his arms.
And when they lowered her into the ground, he swore Barnie would pay.
The courtroom.
Lex stood before the judge, his suit crisp, his posture straight—but inside? He already knew the verdict.
The gavel came down. A name dragged through the dirt. A sentence passed.
He didn't hear the exact words.
All he heard was Barnie's voice, months before, smug and victorious.
"This is just business, kid."
Those words haunted him.
Now.
Lex sat there, drenched in sweat, breathing slow and deep.
The past was done.
The future was his.
He wiped his face with the back of his hand, his mind already shifting gears.
Three moves.
Tomorrow—he'd push the no-confidence vote forward, cornering Barnie at the next board meeting. The pressure from the FBI and the investors would be too much to ignore. Barnie would have to fight with everything he had, which meant he'd make mistakes.
Then—the headlines would land before Barnie had a chance to breathe. Fraud, embezzlement, criminal ties. His name would be shattered before the market even opened. By noon, Maddox Holdings would bleed, and Lex would own the ruins.
Last was the crash—too big to fail.Failed. The weight of his bets would crush Barnie without Lex having to lift a finger.
Lex exhaled, slow and steady.
And by the end of it?
Barnie would have nothing left.