Chapter 3

Five years had slipped by since I last thought about Xavier or the pathetic little pet I’d discarded like yesterday’s trash. My rise in the organization was meteoric—corner offices, private jets, boardrooms where men twice my age trembled at my signature. Power smelled like expensive leather and tasted like single-malt whiskey burning down my throat. Yet even gods need to rest.

Every year for seven days, I vanished. Not even my platinum-card-carrying parents or my surgically efficient assistant knew where. The coordinates lived in a biometric safe, accessible only by their fingerprints over my cold, dead body. This year’s retreat began like all the others—my Italian leather loafers crushing pine needles as I hiked beyond cell towers, beyond civilization. The cave awaited, its rough-hewn door camouflaged by moss. Inside: a king-sized mattress, solar-powered lights, and shelves stocked with vintage wine. My secret kingdom.

Days melted together in sybaritic isolation—naked sunbathing on the flat rocks, fingers dipping between my thighs while imagining the board members groveling at my feet. The outside world didn’t exist. Until it crashed through the cave door on the seventh morning.

The hike back started normally. Then I saw him—Xavier, lounging on the hood of my Aston Martin like a panther who’d eaten the canary. No more security uniform. Now he wore a tailored suit that cost more than his former yearly salary. My polished Oxfords skidded on gravel. “Who the fuck let you touch my car?”

His grin was a knife twisting. “Language, Aron. Though I suppose it’s fitting—your mouth should get used to begging.” He tossed a newspaper at my chest. The headline screamed in bold: BLACK TAKES ALL: ZOTASIAN REGIME OVERTHROWN.

I fumbled for my phone—118 missed calls, 2,457 unread emails. The notifications painted a nightmare: my father’s corpse swinging from the courthouse steps, my mother dragged away in chains, every asset seized by the new regime. The screen trembled in my hand.

“Poor little prince.” Xavier’s polished shoe nudged my knee. “No more gilded cage. Just a choice—kneel as my pet, or let the revolutionary guards play with you.” His fingers traced my jaw. “They love breaking pretty CEOs.”