"Ted Wolfe and Victor Zane are here!"
The announcement rippled through the ballroom like a shockwave. Every breath in the room hitched. The noisy chatter died instantly, replaced by a silence so profound you could hear the air conditioning humming.
All eyes turned to the entrance.
Two men walked in.
On the left was Ted Wolfe, the Richest Man in Northriver. He was known locally as a "Scholar-Merchant"—a man of culture and business. He always wore a smile, greeting everyone from CEOs to janitors with a nod. He seemed harmless, almost grandfatherly.
But that was just a mask. A carefully crafted persona.
Since the collapse of the Lynch Group, the Wolfe Group had ascended to the throne, amassing a fortune exceeding fifty billion dollars. The business world was a shark tank filled with blo
