..
While the Sovereign's empire prepared for war, Bryan was fighting a battle of a different kind—one of relentless, pathetic hope. He chased David like a hungry shadow, a man begging for a drop of water from a frozen lake. David, the stone-faced architect of the Master's finances, didn't even grant Bryan the mercy of a glance. To David, Bryan was a ghost, a glitch in the daily routine of high-stakes power.
Every morning, before the city even breathed, Bryan would arrive at David's office. He would smooth his suit, adjust his tie with trembling fingers, and place his thick file of documents—his entire future bound in plastic and ink—on the center of the mahogany desk. It was a sacred offering to a god who didn't care.
And every evening, without fail, Bryan would find that same file discarded in the trash. It wasn't just thrown away; it was crushed, crumpled beneath the weight of David's expensive coffee cups and shredded memos. But Bryan didn't break.
..
The clock on the wall of the executive suite ticked toward 11 PM, the sound echoing through the sterile, empty halls like a heartbeat. David finally emerged from his office, his mind a blur of offshore accounts and office logistics. He was heading for the breakroom, desperate for the bitter heat of black coffee, when he stopped dead.
There, sitting on the hard steel chair in the dim hallway, was Bryan. The building's heating had long since shut down to save costs, and the night air was a predatory chill. Bryan wasn't wearing a coat—only his thin, polyester office blazer. His cheeks had turned a raw, wind-burnt red, and his lips were so dry they looked like they might crack if he spoke. He was trembling—not with fear, but with a deep, systemic cold that had settled into his bones.
David's brow furrowed, his expression a mask of frustrated disbelief. "Why didn't you go home, Bryan?"
Bryan struggled to find his balance, his knees locking as he stood up. His movements were stiff, like a wooden puppet. He didn't reach for his file this time; he just looked at David with eyes that were glazed but burning with a frantic, exhausted light.
"I was waiting for you, David," Bryan rasped, his voice thin and brittle.
"Are you out of your mind? It's chilling cold out here!" David's voice sliced through the midnight silence, sharp as a scalpel. Bryan didn't reply; he kept his gaze anchored to the floor, his shoulders hunched as if trying to disappear into his own thin blazer. With an irritated sigh, David stepped back. "Come inside."
He led Bryan into the warm, amber-lit sanctuary of his office. "Sit," David commanded, gesturing toward the leather sofa, before disappearing back into the hallway.
Left alone, the warmth of the room began to sting Bryan's frozen skin, but the sight that greeted him stung more. There, peeking out from the silver mesh of the dustbin, was his file—the edges crinkled, the ink of his hard work obscured by shadows.
"Does he hate me that much?" Bryan murmured, his voice a brittle ghost of a sound.
Ignoring the ache in his frozen joints, he stood up and crossed the room. He moved with the slow, reverent grace of a mourner, bending to retrieve the file from the trash. He smoothed the cover with a trembling palm and placed it back on David's mahogany desk, exactly in the center. A silent, desperate prayer in paper form.
The door clicked open. David walked in, the aroma of expensive, steaming coffee following him. He set one cup down in front of the sofa without a word—a small mercy that made Bryan's heart swell. But then David walked to his desk.
He didn't hesitate. He didn't even blink. His facial expression remained a mask of professional ice as he looked at the file Bryan had just "resurrected." With a flick of his wrist, David picked it up and dropped it back into the dustbin with a hollow, final thud.
Bryan's face was a shifting map of agony—confusion, anger, and shock warring behind a mask that was beginning to crack. He didn't shout; he didn't have the guts to raise his voice in this cathedral of glass and steel. Instead, he forced a small, trembling smile, his lips pressed so thin they vanished, a desperate dam holding back a flood of tears.
"David," he whispered, the word hitching in his throat. "Can't you... can't you just help me this once? I've waited in the cold. I've—"
"No."
The word was flat. Final. It didn't even ripple the surface of David's coffee.
"Why?" Bryan asked, his voice cracking. He was looking for a business reason—a flaw in his math, a risk in the market. Anything he could fix.
David finally looked up, but not at Bryan. He looked at the glowing screen of his monitor, the blue light washing over his features and turning his eyes into cold, digital stones. He took a slow, deliberate sip of his coffee, the steam veiling his face.
"Because I don't like you."
The silence that followed was heavier than the cold outside. David didn't look at him; he didn't even acknowledge the way Bryan's spirit seemed to physically wither in the office. To David, this wasn't a tragedy; it was a cleanup. He was telling Bryan that his efforts were worthless because the man himself was an annoyance. He was denying Bryan a future not because of a bad file, but because he simply found his existence distasteful.
Bryan's voice cracked, the dam finally breaking. The words tumbled out in a frantic, wounded rush, revealing a ledger of pain he had kept since their university days. "Why don't you like me?" he sulked, his eyes wild with the memory of a thousand small rejections. "You were the golden boy. You smiled at everyone in the halls. We were in the same group, David! But you treated me like oxygen—necessary for the room, but invisible to the eye. You helped strangers, you treated the world with equality, but when it came to me... you looked through me. What did I ever do to deserve being your only shadow?"
David didn't flinch. He didn't even stop scrolling through the data on his screen. The blue light cast long, villainous shadows across his face.
"There is no grand reason to hate you, Bryan," David said, his voice as smooth and cold as a marble floor. "I just hate the way you exist. Your desperation. Your smell. The way you take up space in a room I'm in. It's... exhausting."
Bryan's body stiffened, the shivering stopping as a different kind of cold took over—the absolute stillness of a man who has reached the end of his rope. His cheeks went from red to a deathly, waxy pale.
"So..." Bryan's voice was suddenly quiet, serious, and terrifyingly flat. "You won't help me. Not now. Not ever. Right?"
David merely hummed. It was a soft, absent-minded sound, the kind one makes when swatting a fly. He didn't look up. He didn't offer a final "no." He simply let the hum hang in the air, a vibration of pure indifference that told Bryan he was already dead in this office. The "Sovereign's Accountant" had closed the books on Bryan's life, and he didn't even bother to check the balance.
Bryan didn't argue further. He grabbed the coffee cup—the only warmth David had ever offered him—and drained the scalding liquid in one defiant, painful gulp. He didn't look back. He simply turned and walked out of the office, his footsteps echoing like a closing casket.
David watched him go, the blue light of the monitor making his eyes look like cracked ice. "I really hate him," he murmured to the empty room, the words tasting like copper. "He's just… annoying. Just seeing his face makes me want to vomit."
But as the silence of the office closed in, David couldn't erase the image of Bryan's cheeks, stained red by the freezing hallway. He looked at the dustbin. With a growl of self-loathing, he reached in and pulled the crumpled file.
He started flipping through the pages, his eyes scanning the meticulous data Bryan had slaved over. "He is such a dumbass," David whispered.
..
The next morning, Bryan returned with a persistence that bordered on psychological warfare. He didn't wait in the hall; he didn't shiver. He moved with a bold, almost shameless confidence that only a man who has already hit rock bottom can possess. He pushed open the heavy oak doors of David's office, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs.
He expected to see the silver mesh of the dustbin. He expected to see his life's work crumpled among the coffee grounds.
But today, the room felt different. The air was thick with the scent of expensive roasted coffee and the low hum of high-end servers, but Bryan's eyes were locked on one thing: the desk.
The file was there. It wasn't buried under a stack of corporate memos or hidden in the shadows of the silver mesh bin. It sat dead-center on the polished mahogany, looking like a battle-worn flag. It had been meticulously smoothed out; David's own hands had clearly spent time pressing the creases flat, trying to undo the violence of the night before. The wrinkles were still there—faint, white scars across the pages—but the content was now positioned as a priority.
Bryan didn't say a word. The silence in the office wasn't heavy anymore; it was soaring. He stood there, a slow, radiant smile spreading across his face—a look of pure, unadulterated triumph that reached his eyes. His cheeks were no longer raw and wind-burnt from the hallway; they were flushed with a feverish, healthy heat.
Bryan was lost in a daydream of green lights and signed contracts, his soul already floating somewhere near the moon.
The heavy doors clicked open, and David swept in—a sharp silhouette of expensive wool and calculated indifference. He carried a leather office bag that looked heavy enough to hold a man's life, but he moved as if Bryan were simply a part of the furniture, a ghost he hadn't yet exorcised. Without a word, David sat in his throne-like chair, the "thud" of his bag on the mahogany sounding like a gavel.
But Bryan was beyond being intimidated. Without waiting for a gesture or an invitation, he surged forward, sitting in the chair directly across from David. He leaned across the desk, his face radiant, his eyes shimmering with a smile that was both desperate and triumphant.
"Are you going to invest in my company?" he asked, his voice breathless, as if he were asking for the keys to a kingdom. He didn't just lean; he hovered over David's personal space, his gaze locked onto David's icy eyes with a heat that could melt a glacier.
David didn't look up immediately. He slowly unzipped his bag, his movements agonizingly deliberate. He let the question hang in the air, allowing Bryan's heart to race until the silence was almost painful. Finally, David looked up, his glasses catching the morning light, masking his thoughts.
David glanced at Bryan, his gaze cold and unreadable. "Who told you that?" His voice was as steady as a marble pillar, devoid of any warmth that Bryan might have imagined was there.
Bryan's eyes widened, and he immediately snapped his spine straight, sitting with a rigid, military-grade perfection. He didn't want to get on David's last nerve; he didn't want his "shameless" attitude to cost him this ghost of a chance. "Because... because my file is on your table," Bryan stammered, his confidence wobbling. "So I thought... I thought you would..."
"Don't think too much, Bryan," David snapped. He didn't reach for the wrinkled, coffee-stained mess from yesterday. Instead, he reached into his leather bag and pulled out a pristine, white folder—a professional reconstruction of Bryan's dreams. He flipped the pages with a rhythmic, sharp snap of paper that sounded like small gunshots in the quiet office.
Finally, David leaned forward, the blue light of his monitors reflecting in his glasses like twin cold stars. He looked Bryan straight in the eyes, his expression a mask of absolute indifference. "I am never investing in your company."
The light in Bryan's face began to dim, his shoulders slumping as the "moon" he was sitting on started to crumble.
"But..." David continued, letting the word hang in the air like a baited hook.
"But what?" Bryan whispered, his voice trembling as a tiny, frantic flicker of hope ignited in his chest.
"I've looked into the records," David said, his voice as immovable as a mountain. "Your company was once a pillar of this industry. It had a reputation that meant something. But you... you've run it into the dirt. You've ruined it so thoroughly that an investment would be like pouring gold into a grave. So, I've made my final decision. I'm not investing. I'm buying you. I will reconstruct the name, but under my banner. Not yours."
Bryan surged to his feet, the chair screeching against the floor like a wounded animal. "Are you out of your mind?!" he choked out, his cheeks flushing a deep, angry red. "I came to you for a partner! I wanted you to believe in the company, to invest... and you want to strip me of my name? Can you be more serious?!"
"I am perfectly serious, Bryan," David replied, his eyes cold and fixed. He didn't even blink at Bryan's outburst.
"No, you're not. You're mocking me. You're trying to see how much I'll crawl," Bryan snapped, his voice trembling with the weight of years of "University friendship" being trampled under David's expensive shoes.
David didn't argue. He didn't raise his voice. He simply reached out and plucked a heavy, silver fountain pen from the stand. He didn't look back at Bryan; he opened his ledger, the "But" from moments ago vanishing into the clinical air of the office.
"Then forget it," David said, his tone flat and final. "Go back to the cold hallway. Go back to the trash.
Bryan's frustration was no longer a fire; it had become a watchful, trembling thing. His brows furrowed into a deep, jagged line of confusion and pain. He looked at David as if he were seeing a stranger—a monster born from the ashes of the friend he once knew.
Without the strength to argue further, Bryan turned. He walked out of the office with the slow, leaden gait of a man who had lost his gravity. He felt small, an ant beneath the heel of a god. As he reached the threshold of the sanctuary he had fought so hard to enter, he murmured a single, brittle sentence to the shadows. "How could anyone be this stubborn?"
David didn't look up. He didn't offer a glance of pity or a moment of hesitation. He remained hunched over his mahogany desk, the blue light of the morning casting a halo of ice around his head. He was busy. The only sound in the room was the rhythmic, clinical scritch-scratch of his fountain pen as he signed file after file. To David, Bryan's exit wasn't a tragedy; it was just the closing door for a cockroach.
..
Bryan slammed his car door shut, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the sterile concrete parking garage. He didn't tell the driver to move; he couldn't move. He felt like he was suffocating under the weight of David's cold ultimatum. With trembling fingers, he snatched his phone and hit the only speed dial that wouldn't judge him.
The moment Daniel picked up, the dam broke. Bryan didn't say hello; he didn't check if the "Shadow" was busy with a hit or a guard rotation. He just snapped, his voice tearing through the small space of the car with every ounce of strength left in his lungs.
"Is he a psycho?! What the hell does he think of himself?!" Bryan shrieked, his chest heaving. He didn't even pause to take a breath, the words tumbling out in a jagged, hysterical rush. "I wanted an investment, Daniel! A partnership! And he... he wants to buy me? He wants to strip the name off the door and put his own flag on the rubble! Then what about me? Am I just an employee now? Or does he just want me as his floor cleaner, something to walk on while he builds his throne?!"
Daniel's chuckle crackled through the phone, a dry, rasping sound that lacked any real warmth. It was the sound of a man who lived in the shadows laughing at a man drowning in the light.
"Do you really think he would keep you as a floor cleaner, Bryan?" Daniel's voice dropped an octave, becoming cold and clinical. "Don't be stupid. David doesn't want you near his floors. He wants you out of his sight. He'll kick you out of his empire the moment he has what he needs. He hates you to that extent—you're a stain on the perfect, frozen world he's built for himself."
Bryan slumped, the cool leather pressing against his burning forehead. The frustration didn't just pique; it curdled into a deep, hollow ache in his chest. He looked out the windshield at the concrete pillars of the parking garage, seeing them as the bars of a cage he had built for himself.
"What had I ever done to him?" Bryan murmured, his voice barely a breath. It was the question of a child who had been slapped for no reason. He was searching for a betrayal, a lie, a moment of malice from their University days—but there was nothing but the memory of shared assignments and quiet library shifts.
"You exist," Daniel replied.
The words were flat, echoing in the cramped interior of the car like stones dropped into a well. There was no malice in Daniel's voice, only the cold, hard fact." In David's sterile, calculated empire, Bryan was a variable that didn't fit—a piece of "University" heart beating in a chest of gears and wires.
"What should I do now?" Bryan asked. The hope had finally bled out of his voice, leaving it thin and brittle. He looked at his own reflection in the rearview mirror—the cheeks, the exhausted eyes—and saw a man who had run out of roads.
Daniel didn't reply instantly. On the other end of the line, Bryan heard the slow, heavy expansion of Daniel's lungs—a deep, weary breath that seemed to carry the weight of all the secrets the Shadow kept for the Sovereign.
"Just don't stop begging," Daniel finally said.
"I am already a beggar at your brother's feet," Bryan whispered, the words tasting like iron and ash. His voice was a low hum, vibrating with the weight of a pride that had been crushed into the parking lot pavement.
"Then keep going," Daniel replied. The click of the disconnected call was as sharp and final as a bone breaking.
Bryan stared at the dead screen for a moment before dropping the phone onto the passenger seat. The silence of the car pressed in on him, cold and suffocating. He took a breath—deep, jagged, and agonizing—and then he did it. He forced his lips to curl upward. It was an ugly, jagged smile, one that didn't reach his hollow eyes. It was a mask made of scar tissue.
"Be a beggar," he hissed to his own reflection in the rearview mirror. "Don't forget. You are a shameless, confident creature. You are the shadow he can't kill. You are the fly he can't swat."
He smoothed his hair and adjusted his tie, injecting a surge of frantic, artificial energy into his veins. It wasn't "positivity"—it was defiance. If David wanted to treat him like a ghost, Bryan would
become a poltergeist. If David wanted to treat him like trash, Bryan would be the piece of trash that stuck to the bottom of his expensive Italian shoes.
..