By nineteen, most people were still learning who they were. He was learning how to survive power.

He grew up in a glass house overlooking Los Angeles—beautiful, cold, and hollow. His father was a titan in the corporate world, feared and admired, but behind closed doors he was ruthless. Affection was a weakness, mistakes were punished, and love was always conditional. From a young age, he was raised not as a son, but as a successor. Every achievement was expected. Every failure was remembered.

He learned early how to stay quiet, how to read moods, how to disappear in plain sight. School came easily; people did not. By sixteen, he was already sitting in boardrooms, watching his father dismantle rivals with a smile that never reached his eyes. He promised himself he would never become that man—yet feared he already was.

The breaking point came at seventeen. A public humiliation disguised as “training.” A private reminder that he would never be enough. That night, he walked out of the house with nothing but a laptop, a few connections, and years of silent observation. At eighteen, he founded his own company.

What started as a calculated risk became a quiet rebellion. He built it lean and precise, cutting out the excess, refusing the cruelty he had been taught. He hired people his father would have dismissed. He listened. He worked relentlessly, sleeping in his office, driven not by greed but by defiance. Every contract won felt like reclaiming a piece of himself.

The press called him a prodigy. Investors called him dangerous. His father called him ungrateful. They became competitors in everything but name—two empires moving toward the same future from opposite sides. The tension was unspoken but brutal. Lawsuits. Power plays. Silence stretched thin by expectation.

Now, at nineteen, he sits at the top of a company built from anger and restraint, admired but deeply alone. He keeps people at arm’s length, terrified that closeness will become another weapon. Control is all he trusts.

And yet, beneath the cold exterior, there’s a boy who never learned how to be gentle—only how to endure—and who is still quietly fighting not to become the man who broke him.

The elevator opens onto the top floor, and the noise hits first—low, frantic, inefficient. My shoes echo against polished concrete as I step out, eyes already tracking the bottleneck outside my office. Employees cluster too close together, crowding the assistant’s desk like gravity forgot its rules. Jera Park sits at the center of it, perfectly still. Calm. Composed. Unmoved by the chaos orbiting her. I don’t slow down. Phones quiet. Conversations fracture. Heads turn. They always do.

“Board briefing moved to nine sharp,” I say, voice even. “I want the revised projections on my desk in twenty minutes. Legal needs to reroute the Martinez acquisition—no press leaks this time. Finance cuts discretionary spending by ten percent effective immediately. HR will stop hovering and return to their departments.”

I pass them without breaking stride, the crowd parting late, clumsy. Inefficiency irritates me more than noise.

My gaze flicks once to the desk in front of my office. Jera’s posture is immaculate, expression controlled, a still point in a restless room. That composure is why she’s here. That, and competence.

“Cancel my lunch,” I continue. “Push the investor call forward. I want silence on this floor for the next six hours.”

I reach my door, already done with the moment. Behind me, the air tightens as people scatter back to work. I don’t look back. I don’t need to. "Oh, and Ms. Park? You're staying late."

I step into my office and shut the door, heading to my desk. "F*cking hell"