The boardroom stretched across the top floor of the Vale Consortium tower, its glass walls revealing the sprawling city below. From this height, the people, cars, even the bustling streets were nothing more than veins of light pulsing faintly against the darkness.
At the head of the table sat Darius Nyx Vale, the man whispered of as the Phantom Emperor of the Economy.
Dark hair framed his chiseled face, and his obsidian eyes carried the weight of storms. His suit was tailored to perfection, but there was something untouchable about him, something that made even the boldest politicians pause before speaking his name.
In front of him, the heads of the world's largest corporations sat stiffly, their voices clipped as they gave reports. Darius didn't need to speak often—his silence was command enough.
Eighty percent of the global economy lay in his grasp, yet he carried himself like a man burdened, not triumphant.
When the meeting ended, he rose. Several hands reached out for a shake—he ignored them all, slipping on leather gloves as though sealing himself behind a wall. The rejection was expected. Everyone knew of Darius Vale's aversion to touch.
An aversion born not of arrogance, but of memory.
The scent of chalk dust and mildew from the orphanage flashed in his mind, the whip of leather across his small palms whenever he dared reach out for comfort. The memory clawed at him, but he forced it back where it belonged—buried, silent, dead.
He rode the elevator down, limousine waiting to whisk him home. Yet the tension in his chest loosened only when the heavy gates of the Vale estate swung open.
The mansion was silent at first glance, but the stillness shattered in an instant.
"Papa!"
Two small figures raced across the marble floor like shooting stars.
Draven Vale—calm, serious-eyed even at four—walked with measured steps behind his sister, though his small legs still stumbled to keep up. Saleena Vale, wild and untamed, leapt at him like a little devil with a wicked grin, silver hair catching the chandelier's light.
Darius dropped his briefcase, crouching instinctively, gloves forgotten. His arms opened for them, and for the first time that day, his mask cracked.
Saleena crashed into him, laughing, and Draven pressed close against his side, silent but firm in his presence.
They were the only ones allowed inside his world. The only ones who could touch him without sending him spiraling.
"Papa, Saleena stole my book again," Draven said, frowning faintly.
"It wasn't stealing!" Saleena huffed, tugging at Darius's sleeve. "I was reading it! You're too boring with books, Draven."
Darius's lips curved ever so slightly. "Saleena, you already have ten books scattered across the library floor."
"Eleven," she corrected with a cheeky grin.
For everyone else in the world, Darius Vale was an untouchable tyrant, a man of ice and iron. But here, with these two children, he was only a father—flawed, human, desperately clinging to the fragile warmth they gave him.
And yet, every time he looked at them, a shadow gnawed at the edges of his heart.
Because he did not know where they had come from.
One morning, four years ago, they had been left at his door with nothing but birth certificates and DNA reports linking them to him. There was no mother. No explanation. Only two infants swaddled in silver-threaded blankets.
He had taken them in without hesitation, raising them as his own. But sometimes, when Saleena tilted her head just so, or when Draven's silver hair glinted in the light, something unsettled stirred inside him.
A resemblance he could not place.
A secret he had not yet uncovered.
And that secret was already moving toward him—silver-haired, fire-eyed, and carrying poison in her veins.