Marcus's self-imposed penance began not with sweeping gestures, but with a quiet, brutal audit. He turned his analytical mind on his own empire, and what he found sickened him. In his absence, Alistair had not been a mere steward. He had been an architect, quietly steering Thorne Group into ventures that were ethically dubious at best, exploitative at worst—predatory data mining, pharmaceutical price gouging, covert political lobbying that contradicted every public statement Marcus had ever made. The loyal confidant had been building his own shadow empire, using Marcus's grief and distraction as a shield.
Confronting Alistair in the penthouse library, Marcus felt a new kind of cold fury. "You used my search for humanity to strip it from everything I owned."
Alistair's composure was glacial. "I preserved and grew your assets, sir, as you asked. Sentiment is a luxury that bankrupts empires. You went searching for a heart and left the brain unattended. I merely provided one."
This betrayal was deeper than any other. It meant his entire foundation was rotten. He fired Alistair on the spot, initiating a brutal, public legal battle to reclaim control of the labyrinthine trusts. The business world watched, agog, as the titan tore down his own right hand. But the fight drained him, revealing a terrifying truth: disentangling himself from his own wealth, from Alistair's machinations, was a Herculean task that could take years. He couldn't just walk away; he had to dismantle a monster he'd built.