The morning after the charity gala broke over Manhattan with the kind of pale light that turns glass towers into mirrors. Jason Jae stood before his office window on the forty-ninth floor of J & K Holdings, coffee cooling untouched in his hand. From up here, New York looked calm—clean lines, constant rhythm—but inside the building, the rhythm was breaking.
A single notification pulsed red on his tablet: Meridian Tech deal delayed—regulatory review reopened.
That deal was supposed to cement his family’s dominance for the next decade. Instead, it had opened a fissure.
Jason pinched the bridge of his nose, the early ache of exhaustion creeping in. He had been running on adrenaline for weeks—Gigi’s presence had given him something to look forward to, something human—but the empire he’d buil
