Chapter 002
1488 Words
The world forgot Allen Morgan with alarming efficiency.
Within three weeks of the fire, the name “Morgan” had quietly retreated from the financial headlines of Veritas City. The markets adjusted. The boardrooms adapted. Stock prices dipped, stabilized, and then continued as if nothing of consequence had been lost.
A dynasty did not collapse.
It simply reallocated.
Allen watched this happen from a place that did not officially exist.
The facility was buried beneath layers of shell ownership and geographic misdirection—registered as a long-term “private rehabilitation and research site,” staffed by professionals whose contracts forbade curiosity. There were no logos on the walls. No flags. No slogans promising recovery or rebirth.
Just silence.
Silence, and work.
The first month was pain.
Not the dramatic kind that inspired screams or tears, but the slow, grinding kind that wore down pride piece by piece. Allen learned to sit without trembling. To stand without collapsing. To walk across a room without the floor tilting beneath him like a ship in bad weather.
Muscle memory returned reluctantly, as if his body no longer trusted him.
Every morning began the same way.
Cold light through the blinds. The low hum of medical equipment. A bitter pill dissolved beneath his tongue. A therapist’s neutral encouragement.
And Philip Keen, standing at the edge of the room like a shadow that had decided to take human form.
Philip never rushed him.
Never praised him excessively.
Never pitied him.
He simply observed.
“Again,” Philip would say when Allen’s hand shook too much during physical training.
Or: “Rest. Your system is compensating incorrectly.”
Or sometimes nothing at all—just a nod that said I’m still here. Continue.
Allen came to understand that Philip’s presence was not emotional support.
It was assurance.
Someone was keeping score.
By the third month, Allen began asking questions.
Not about his body.
About the world.
“Who attended my funeral?” he asked one evening, sitting on the edge of his bed, towel draped over his shoulders after training.
Philip didn’t look up from his tablet. “No official service. A private memorial hosted by the Morgan family. Closed guest list.”
“Speeches?”
“Two. One about legacy. One about regret.”
Allen smiled faintly. “Performed regret?”
Philip’s fingers paused. “If regret were genuine, they would have searched for you.”
“Did anyone?”
Philip scrolled. “One.”
Allen’s smile faded. “Who?”
“An old man from Novus City. James Hobbs.”
The name settled heavily in the air.
Allen closed his eyes.
James Hobbs. A ninth-rate businessman. A man with failing lungs and outdated values. Someone who had once risked his life to drag a poisoned stranger from a burning house.
“He filed missing-person inquiries with three private firms,” Philip continued. “All were blocked within forty-eight hours by ‘jurisdictional complications.’ He lacked the leverage to push further.”
Allen exhaled slowly. “And the others?”
Philip finally looked up. “Your cousins initiated asset redistribution within a week.”
The words landed cleanly.
Not cruelly.
Cleanly.
That was Philip’s gift—he never softened reality, but he never dramatized it either.
Allen nodded. “Then they’ve already written my ending.”
Philip’s eyes sharpened slightly. “Only because you allowed them to choose the genre.”
The fourth and fifth months were about information.
Philip brought Allen files—thin at first, then increasingly dense.
Corporate structures.
Offshore registrations.
Shadow mergers that never made the news.
Families that appeared independent but moved like coordinated units.
The Stone family.
The name appeared again and again, always in the margins. Never at the center of scandals. Never in direct ownership. Always as “consultants,” “silent partners,” or “strategic intermediaries.”
“They are your cousins’ claws,” Philip explained. “They do the work that requires deniability.”
Allen absorbed the data without comment.
He learned who had voted for what.
Who had signed which emergency resolutions.
Who had ordered his security detail reassigned.
Who had approved the suppression of the villa’s fire systems.
By the time he finished reading the final file, Allen did not feel anger.
He felt clarity.
Anger required uncertainty.
This was math.
Month six marked a turning point.
Allen stood unaided in a private gym, wrapped hands slamming into a heavy bag with controlled precision. His movements were no longer tentative. His body had relearned obedience.
Philip watched from the sidelines.
“You move differently,” Philip observed.
Allen struck again. Harder. “I don’t waste motion anymore.”
“That applies beyond combat.”
Allen stepped back, breathing steady. “Good. I don’t plan to.”
It was that night that Philip placed a single folder on the table.
Black.
Unmarked.
“This is not the Morgan Group,” Philip said. “This is yours.”
Allen opened it.
Inside were documents—foundational charters, layered ownership trees, investment pipelines mapped across jurisdictions.
Vita Coperation.
The name was bland by design. Forgettable. Corporate. Safe.
But the numbers were not.
Capital flowed through Vita like blood through an artificial heart—clean, efficient, unstoppable. It did not announce itself. It arrived.
“You built this,” Allen said quietly.
Philip shook his head. “We built it.”
Allen looked up.
Philip met his gaze evenly. “I am not your servant, Mr. Morgan. I am your strategist. And I will not follow a man who intends to reclaim scraps from his old table.”
Allen closed the folder.
“What table, then?” he asked.
Philip’s answer was immediate. “The one they are still begging to sit at.”
By month eight, Vita Coperation began to surface.
Not loudly.
Not arrogantly.
Just enough to be noticed.
A sudden acquisition here. A strategic bailout there. Infrastructure investments that solved problems governments had argued about for decades.
No press conferences.
No interviews.
Just results.
Allen remained invisible.
To the world, Philip Keen was the face—brilliant, composed, relentlessly competent. Rumors spread quickly: a new titan had entered the arena. A man with impossible backing. A company with terrifying liquidity.
Speculation bloomed.
Was it sovereign money?
A private fund?
A consortium of old families?
Allen watched it all from behind glass, sipping black coffee in a room with no mirrors.
“Do they suspect you?” Allen asked one evening.
Philip shook his head. “They’re too busy guessing wrong.”
Month ten brought Novus City back into focus.
Philip projected a map onto the wall. Ports. Districts. Development zones highlighted in soft blue.
“This city is starving for capital,” Philip said. “And desperate enough to compromise.”
Allen studied the map.
“The Hobbs family?”
Philip switched slides. “Barely surviving. Debt-ridden. Clinging to relevance.”
Allen’s eyes lingered on the name.
“And the Governor?”
Philip’s lips curved faintly. “Ambitious. Insecure. Ideal.”
Allen leaned back. “Good.”
The eleventh month was about timing.
Allen stood before a mirror for the first time in nearly a year.
The man staring back was familiar—and not.
His frame was leaner. Harder. His eyes no longer searched rooms for approval or threat; they measured space like territory.
He looked like someone who no longer needed to explain himself.
“Your return must feel incidental,” Philip said from behind him. “Not announced. Not defended.”
Allen adjusted his cuff. “I was never good at grand entrances.”
Philip allowed himself a small smile. “That’s why this will work.”
On the final night before departure, rain lashed against the windows.
Allen stood alone, city lights bleeding through the glass.
“Novus City,” Philip said quietly. “That’s where you disappear to.”
Allen nodded. “And where I reappear.”
Philip handed him a slim device. “Your invitation. The Gilded Resort. Opening gala. Every family that matters will be there.”
“And the ones that don’t?” Allen asked.
Philip’s gaze turned cold. “They’ll still come. They always do.”
Allen slipped the device into his pocket.
“Philip,” he said after a pause. “If I walk back into that city… they won’t recognize me.”
Philip stepped closer. “That’s the point.”
Allen exhaled slowly.
“One year,” he murmured. “I’ll give them one year to remember who I am.”
Philip shook his head. “They won’t remember.”
Allen’s lips curved—not into a smile, but into something sharper.
“Then,” he said, “I’ll remind them.”
Outside, the rain intensified.
And somewhere far away, in Novus City, the lights of The Gilded Resort waited—unaware that the man about to step into their glow had already survived the fire meant to erase him.
- Writer
