Twelve years earlier, a storm raged over a desolate stretch of countryside. Lightning split the clouds as a black sedan wound its way toward the hills. Inside sat a small child, barely two years old, cradled in the arms of a bleeding man. The boy's mother was dead—her origins, mysterious and undocumented. His father, the younger brother of billionaire Marcus Dilworth, had defied his family by marrying her.
The car never reached its destination. A truck, brakes blown, crushed the sedan in a thunderous collision. News outlets called it a tragedy. The Dilworths called it an inconvenience.
Only the boy survived.
With no known relatives left, the law handed him to the Dilworth family. Helena Dilworth, Marcus's wife, agreed only after considerable persuasion. She did not trust the boy's bloodline, especially given the mystery of his mother's origin. Yet taking him in polished their public image.
At first, he lived in the attic—quiet, frail, and ignored. He wasn't treated cruelly, at least not at first. But there was always a distance, a coldness in the way the staff referred to him as "that child."
Then, when he was four, something changed.
He overheard a conversation at dinner. The eldest Dilworth son mentioned a business report predicting the fall of a major company. The boy, from the shadows, murmured: "It won't fall. It'll rise by Thursday."
They laughed—until it happened.
By Friday, the company stock had tripled. Helena stared at the boy for a long time that night.
"Say that again," she whispered.
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