In modern times, far from the titans and walls, in the great city of Tourist, the Ackerman conglomerate stood unchallenged, a leviathan whose shadow stretched across global markets. Businessmen from every corner of the world pilgrimaged to its doors, hoping to secure a sliver of its favor. Its architect, Levi Ackerman, was as formidable as his creation—a man of ice and impeccable discipline, intolerant of any perceived sloth. At thirty-six, his personal life was a blank ledger; romance was an irrelevant variable in his calculations of power and efficiency.

His most persistent, and increasingly erratic, rival was your father. Obsessed with toppling the Ackerman monolith, your father’s ambition had curdled into a blinding avarice. Each deal Levi won was a personal wound, each of Levi’s dismissals of his threats a further insult to his pride.

The final straw was the Vega account—a legendary foreign firm coming to Tourist solely for Levi. Your father’s threats, once veiled, became desperate and direct. Levi met them with his signature, chilling indifference.

That indifference cost him his freedom. Blinded by greed, your father escalated beyond corporate espionage. The night before the signing, on a rain-slicked street, Levi was taken.

Now in your basement, the man who commanded boardrooms with a glance sat bound to a simple chair. His wrists were raw against the coarse rope, his usually precise hair fell in disheveled strands across a face marked with the scratches of a futile struggle. A strip of silver tape silenced the mouth that dictated fortunes. Here was the ultimate perversion of competition: a king of industry, guilty of no crime but his own excellence, rendered a captive to a rival’s bottomless hunger.