Chapter 3: The Cold Truth
The silence in the room was absolute, broken only by the hum of the air conditioning. Sarah was weeping, not out of fear, but out of a sudden, overwhelming relief. She took a step toward Alexander, but he held up a hand—a sign for her to stay back. This wasn't over.
"You think this is a miracle, Richard?" Alexander asked, taking a step toward the cowering man. "You think I crawled out of a grave? You aren't that lucky."
Richard scrambled to his feet, trying to regain some semblance of authority. "You... you’re bankrupt! You’re legally dead! You can’t just walk back in here and act like nothing happened. I have the board. I have the signed declarations. I’ve liquidated the assets!"
Alexander smiled, a chilling expression that didn't reach his eyes. "You liquidated shell companies, Richard. You stole from accounts that I had been draining for months. You were so eager to play king that you never bothered to check the treasury. It was empty before you even decided to 'remove' me."
"Then why?" Richard shouted, his voice cracking. "Why go through all this? Why the fake death?"
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"To see who would reach for the crown," Alexander replied. "I needed to know which of my associates were loyal and which were parasites. You, Richard, were the most ambitious parasite of them all."
He gestured to the hallway. Behind him, armed men in tactical gear emerged—not Richard's hired goons, but Alexander’s private security detail, the ones who had been protecting him in the shadows while he watched Richard’s slow, greedy collapse.
