The air in the Draxon Corporation's atrium was colder than usual, the marble reflecting the silence of anticipation. Outside, press vans had begun to circle like sharks scented by blood in the water. Inside, every executive with something to lose was either burying secrets or trying to align with Elias Thorne whose name now echoed across media platforms and financial journals alike.
The scandal of DexFab had cracked open an old tomb. One that should've stayed sealed.
Jude handed Elias a fresh portfolio. "Another anonymous tip. Internal documents, possibly from within Duchess. You're starting to have fans."
Elias gave a half-smile. "Or someone setting me up for a grander fall."
He scanned the documents quickly. Account routing numbers. Private emails. Recordings. And at the center Valerie Dexter's personal assistant, whose loyalty was now in question. But more curious was the third-party transfer: large funds rerouted to a defunct international subsidiary Velcoris Limited.
Velcoris. The name meant nothing.
But Elias had learned by now names were often masks. And the worst monsters wore pearls.
"Find who's behind Velcoris," he told Jude. "Start with Dexter's off-shore counsel."
Jude nodded. "What should I tell the board about the media conference?"
"Tell them I'll be speaking," Elias said, flipping the page. "And tell them to bring their best suits. We're burying a dynasty today."
The private lounge on the 77th floor had become Elias Thorne's war room. No more glass tables and catered fruit bowls now it housed red-threaded pinboards, encrypted tablets, and maps of shell companies across continents. Lewis stood near the panoramic window, arms crossed, while Jude laid out the week's intelligence.
"She's been quiet," Lewis said, voice low. "Valerie's not the type to play defense."
"She's repositioning," Elias replied. "The Duchess Corporation hasn't filed a press release. They're preparing a controlled counterstrike."
Lewis turned, his dark military eyes fixed on Elias. "You know what's going to happen if they go public with the affair."
"It won't matter," Elias said. "If they release the footage, they expose their own manipulation. Duchess funded the drugged setup. They lose credibility either way."
"And if they leak it through a third-party?" Lewis pressed. "Some anonymous blog or gossip columnist?"
Elias paused.
That would be more dangerous. It wouldn't be a scandal it would be a whispering war. One where truth mattered less than traction.
"Then we preempt them," he said, pacing. "We release it ourselves with context. Turn it into a redemption narrative."
"Won't that look desperate?"
"No. It'll look human."
Jude raised a brow. "Human, from the man who just gutted half the board?"
Elias gave him a smirk. "Even tyrants wear velvet."
Jude laughed despite himself.
The storm rolled in like a coordinated attack silent at first, then chaotic. It began with a leaked memo: an anonymous drop to the press claiming Elias Thorne used insider information to dismantle competitors and personally benefited from offshore accounts.
By midday, a journalist from ,The Echo Tribune** had published an exposé titled "The New Tyrant of Draxon: Is Elias Thorne Untouchable?"
"What the hell is this?" Elias snapped, throwing the newspaper across the table.
Jude caught it mid-air, scanning the headline. "It's well-written. Twisted. Loaded with just enough truth to make it impossible to deny."
Lewis stepped in, placing a dossier on the table. "We traced the drop. The metadata links it to a burner server in Nice. French soil."
"Valerie," Elias muttered. "Or one of the board holdouts."
"They're not even hiding anymore," Lewis added. "And there's more…"
He slid over security footage grainy, timestamped of Elias leaving a charity gala two nights prior. A woman in a red dress walked beside him. Close. Intimate.
"Is that"
"Magritte," Lewis confirmed. "They're trying to pin a new scandal on you. This time, it's not about drugs. It's character assassination. Consecutive affairs. Greed. Nepotism."
Elias stared at the screen.
"What do we do?" Jude asked.
He stood slowly, his voice grave. "We feed the fire. But on our terms."