Chapter 1: The Man Who Owned Everything
Kael Vance stood at the window of his corner office on the ninety-seventh floor of Vance Tower. The city sprawled beneath him, millions of lights flickering in the December darkness. He owned most of what he could see. Office buildings. Hotels. Technology firms. The very air in the lungs of everyone who worked in his properties.
He felt nothing.
His grandfather had built this company from nothing. A garage. A single patent. Decades of relentless work. Now the company was bleeding eight million dollars every quarter. The board wanted him gone by Christmas. They said he was too young when he took over. Too inexperienced. Too cold.
They were not wrong about the cold.
He turned from the window. His grandfather's portrait hung on the wall, watching him with stern, approving eyes. The same gray eyes Kael had inherited. The same sharp jaw. The same relentless drive.
What would his grandfather think of him now? The company failing. His father's ghost still haunting every corner of this building. A locked drawer in his desk containing a whiskey bottle he could not throw away and could not open.
A soft knock. Marcus Chen entered without waiting for permission. They had known each other too long for formalities.
Marcus placed a folder on the desk. His face was serious. He said there was one remaining option. Santos Engineering. A small firm in Queens. Antonio Santos held patents that could save Vance Holdings' next generation of technology. Without them, the company would not survive another year.
Kael asked what Santos wanted. Marcus hesitated. Antonio Santos was old school. He did not do hostile takeovers. He did not sell to strangers. But a son-in-law was not a stranger.
Kael stared at his friend. He asked if Marcus was suggesting what he thought he was suggesting.
Marcus opened the folder. A photograph lay inside. Dark curly hair. Green eyes. A warm, open smile. Lira Santos. Twenty-eight years old. Kindergarten teacher. Daughter of Antonio Santos. No business experience. No connection to their world.
Marcus said it was the only way.
Kael closed the folder. He told Marcus to find another option. Marcus said there was no other option. Kael said he would not trap an innocent woman in his mess. Marcus asked if he had a better idea.
Kael did not answer.
He dismissed Marcus and turned back to the window. The city glittered below him. Millions of people living their lives. Eating dinner. Laughing with friends. Holding the people they loved.
He had never learned how to do any of it.
His mother left when he was seven. He remembered her face but not her voice. He remembered waiting at the window for three hours, certain she would come back. She never came back.
His father was a quiet drunk. Not the loud, violent kind. The kind who disappeared into a bottle and never fully returned. He stopped coming to dinner. Stopped asking about Kael's day. Stopped looking at his son altogether.
Kael was nineteen when he found the body. His father on the floor of this very office, empty bottle still in his hand, eyes open and staring at nothing. Kael did not cry. He called the lawyers. He took over the company the next morning.
He had not cried since.
He opened the folder again. Lira Santos looked up at him with her warm smile and her green eyes. She looked happy. She looked like she had never been trapped in her life.
He wondered what it would feel like to smile like that.
He closed the folder. He put it in his drawer. He did not sleep that night.
---
Across the city, in a small apartment above a laundromat in Queens, Lira Santos sat beside her father's hospital bed.
Antonio Santos was sixty-seven years old but looked eighty. His lungs were failing. Years of working with industrial materials had finally caught up with him. The doctors said months. Maybe less.
His hand was thin and cold in hers. She held it gently, careful not to hurt him. His skin was papery. His veins were blue rivers beneath translucent flesh.
He told her not to let them tear apart his company. His voice was a whisper, each word costing him. He said her mother's name was on that door. He said her mother believed in that company. He said her mother believed in him.
Lira promised him. She did not know how she would keep that promise.
She was twenty-eight years old. She taught kindergarten. Her students loved her because she laughed easily and listened carefully and always had a bandage for scraped knees. She made forty-two thousand dollars a year and owed forty-seven thousand in student loans. Her savings account held eight hundred dollars.
Her father's medical bills were thirty thousand and climbing.
She kissed his forehead and told him to rest. She said she would figure it out. She always did.
She took the subway home to Queens. Her apartment was small and imperfect. Second-hand furniture she had rescued from sidewalks and restored with sandpaper and paint. Fresh flowers on the windowsill, yellow tulips she had bought instead of lunch. Her mother's photograph on the dresser, dusted weekly.
She sat at her kitchen table and tried to think of solutions. There were none.
A knock on her door. Late for visitors. She opened it to find a man in an expensive coat and handmade shoes. He was polite. Polished. He introduced himself as Marcus Chen, CFO of Vance Holdings. His employer would like to meet with her. He believed he could help her father.
She took his card. Her hands were steady. Her heart was not.
---
Two days later, Lira sat across from Kael Vance in a private restaurant that did not have prices on the menu.
He was younger than she expected. Colder. His face revealed nothing. His suit was perfect. His posture was rigid. He did not stand when she entered. He did not offer his hand.
She sat down without waiting for permission. She was afraid, but she would not show it.
He placed a stack of papers on the table. Fifty pages. He spoke in short, precise sentences. He needed her father's patents. Her father would not sell to a stranger. But a son-in-law was not a stranger.
He was proposing a contract. One year of marriage. She would live in his home. Accompany him to public events. Play the role of devoted wife.
In exchange, Vance Holdings would inject five million dollars into Santos Engineering. Her father's debt would be cleared. His medical bills would be paid in full. His company would stay in family hands.
She stared at him. She asked if he was asking her to marry him for business.
Yes, he said. That was exactly what he was doing.
She should have walked out. She should have thrown the papers in his perfect, expressionless face.
She thought of her father's thin hands. His whisper. Her mother's name on the door.
She took the contract home.
---
Three days of silence.
Kael told himself he did not care whether she agreed. He told himself this was just business. He told himself many things.
He watched her building security feed more often than he admitted. She was always home by six. She always had fresh flowers on her windowsill. She hummed while she cooked.
He did not know why he noticed these things.
Lira read the contract at her kitchen table until midnight. Fifty pages of legal language. She understood very little of it. What she understood was this: one year of her life for her father's life. It was not a fair trade. It was the only trade available.
Her father called. His voice was stronger today. He asked about her day. He asked if she was eating well. He did not ask about the company. He did not want to burden her.
She told him she had good news. She had found investors. The company would survive.
He cried. She had not heard him cry since her mother died.
She said yes to Kael Vance the next morning.
---
The wedding was six people in a sterile conference room.
Her father in a wheelchair, oxygen tank beside him, but smiling. Kael in a gray suit, perfect and cold. No flowers. No music. No joy.
The officiant spoke words Lira did not hear. She watched Kael's face for any sign of feeling. There was none.
He kissed her cheek. Quick. Cold. Polite. His lips barely touched her skin. She felt nothing.
She was Lira Vance now. She did not know what that meant.
---
His penthouse was beautiful and empty.
Glass walls. Marble floors. Furniture that looked expensive and uncomfortable. No photographs. No personal items. No evidence that anyone actually lived here.
His assistant, Elena, showed her to her room. Separate bedroom. Ensuite bathroom. Walk-in closet filled with clothes that were not hers. Elena said Mr. Vance had these purchased for her. If anything did not fit, adjustments could be made.
Lira touched a silk blouse. It cost more than her monthly salary. She thanked Elena and waited until the door closed.
She unpacked her worn suitcase. Her second-hand sweaters looked ridiculous in the custom closet. Her yellow toothbrush looked small and lonely next to the pristine black one in the bathroom.
At midnight, she heard him come home. His footsteps paused outside her door. She held her breath.
He continued to his study.
She could not sleep. She wandered the hallway. His study door was cracked open. She peered inside.
He was not working. He was sitting in the dark, staring at the city. His tie was loose. His face was bare. He looked exhausted. He looked like a man who had been alone for a very long time.
She realized he was as trapped as she was.
Something shifted inside her. She had come here expecting a monster. Instead, she found a prisoner.
Just like her.
---
The first morning, she woke to coffee on the counter.
Fresh fruit. A note in careful handwriting. His assistant would help her with anything she needed. His contact information, should she require it.
She did not know what to do with herself. She explored the penthouse. His books were all business. His photographs were all of his grandfather. There was a locked drawer in his desk. She did not open it.
She felt restless. Useless. She had always been the one who did things. Made things. Fixed things. Here, there was nothing to do and nothing to fix.
She thought of her father. His thin hands. His grateful tears. His belief that she had saved him.
She decided she would not waste this year.
She cooked dinner. Pasta with her father's recipe, the one her mother had taught her before she died. She left a plate on the counter. She did not know if he would eat it.
At midnight, she heard his key in the door. His footsteps paused outside her room. She held her breath.
He continued to the kitchen.
Silence. Then the soft sound of a fork against ceramic.
I
n the morning, the plate was empty in the sink. Washed. Dried. Put away.
She smiled. Just a little. Just for a moment.
It was the first time she had smiled since the wedding.