CHAPTER 39: THE FIRST DOMINO FALLS

"Shit, shit, shit" James Brock said as he grabbed a random flower vase and smashed it in the wall of his office

None of his employees, not even Darwin dared enter his office while he destroyed basically everything within.

After all, no one wanted to be on the receiving end of his anger—an anger James believed was entirely justified, given the circumstances they were in. At least, in his mind, it was.

"Damn it!" James’ monitor was next to hit the floor. All his other furnitures making themselves small so they wouldn’t be on the receiving end next, well they would if they could.

Lucky for them, James stopped throwing things around the office and started pacing.

Until a week ago, everything was fine.

His company was running well and he on the cusp of impressing his biggest backer, Nathaniel Langley.

If he could successfully ste—um legally acquire the property that Drake Systems had used as collateral for their loan, then he’d finally earn Nathaniel’s full approval.

He had structured the loan like the perfect trap: high-interest, impossible terms, hidden clauses.

All Camila Drake had to do was stumble once, and James would swoop in, seize the land, and liquidate the assets before anyone blinked.

But then out of nowhere, an unknown company came into the picture.

Omnitech Corp. had suddenly swooped in, buying out Drake systems and immediately paid off all its debts, ruining James perfect plan.

But despite everything, Nathaniel had given him one last chance to prove himself—even going so far as to have his terrifying enforcer, Dmitri, offer financial backing if James dared to ask.

Why was Nathaniel being so generous this time? James had no idea but he knew that this really was his last chance so he had to come up with the perfect plan.

And what was James’ plan this time?

It was simple actually, he had used some of his connections to do some digging into this OmniTech Corp and he discovered the perfect opportunity.

Omnitech was about to launch its first product and they needed interested investors, publicity, and most importantly, credibility.

And that was where James saw his in.

He started using both his and the financial backing Dmitri’s backing, he found out every single company or individual OmniTech had approached and that’s when his plan was put in motion.

He either blackmailed or paid them off, sometimes both.

It wasn’t hard. Most of the investors were opportunists, always with a skeleton or two rattling in their closets.

A silent threat here, a conveniently leaked document there, and suddenly people started pulling out of meetings with OmniTech.

Others received generous "advisory fees" from shell companies linked to James, obviously bribes disguised as business deals but no one was going to point that out.

All they had to do was quietly back out, maybe cite "unexpected concerns," or just stop responding to Lillian’s emails.

James played dirty, and he played to win.

Within just a few days, Lillian’s carefully built list of contacts was bleeding dry. One by one, they vanished, meetings were cancelled and calls went unanswered. Emails came back with polite rejections.

OmniTech, this fresh upstart with no history and a product that hadn’t even launched, was being made to look radioactive. And that was exactly what James wanted.

Because without investor confidence, without press coverage, and without public trust...

There would be no launch.

And if there was no launch, OmniTech Corp would die out and they would have no choice but to sell out and disappear.

It was the perfect plan.

Well, that is until everything suddenly started going wrong.

It started subtly.

A call James was expecting from a contact in New York never came. No big deal, people got busy, right?

But then another call didn’t happen. Then a third. Then came the sudden silence from one of his most reliable moles inside a media firm.

And then the weirdest thing: one of the shell companies he had used to bribe a journalist? It got flagged by a federal watchdog site, publicly.

James nearly choked on his coffee when he saw the article headline:

"Anonymous Whistleblower Exposes Shell Funding Network in Atlanta’s Tech Scene."

Complete with charts, routing numbers, and a polite suggestion that "certain unnamed figures" may have committed financial crimes.

But that was just the beginning.

By the end of the day, five of his alias accounts were frozen. Two of the companies he’d bribed had forwarded his bribe email to a journalist and tagged the SEC.

James couldn’t believe it. Someone was attacking him and they were coming from all angles.

He slammed a fist onto his desk as he roared,"Who the hell is doing this?!"

Omnitech never crossed his mind since, for one, it was a no name company and more importantly, because in James’s eyes, no startup that green could possibly have the reach, precision, or audacity to pull this off.

But someone was.

Darwin peeked his head in for half a second, only to immediately retreat after he was met with James’s glare.

"That’s right," James abruptly stood up, "sir Nathaniel can help me fix this."

He suddenly pulled out his phone and searched his contacts for the closest contact he had to Nathaniel before he tapped on it.

Ring.

Ring.

Click.

A voice answered, and from the accent, it was obvious that Dmitri was on the other line "speak."

James cleared his throat, trying not to sound panicked. "I need to speak to sir Nathaniel. Now."

"He’s busy."

"This is urgent. Someone’s sabotaging my entire operation. My accounts are being frozen, the moles I planted are going dark, and I just got hit in a federal exposé. Someone is targeting me, Dmitri. This is serious."

There was a long pause on the other end, which caused sweat to bead at James’s temple.

Then Dmitri replied, "And?"

His question shocked James as he did a double take, wandering if he had really heard well.

"What do you mean ’and?’ I’m being dismantled from the inside out! I need resources,legal, financial, maybe even a connection of yours to sweep this clean. If s-sir Nathaniel wants this OmniTech trash gone, then now’s the time to act."

Dmitri exhaled a low breath. "You’ve already burned half the resources we gave you, James. You were warned this was your last chance."

"No, wait—Dmitri. Listen to me, I’m close. I had them cornered, but someone else got involved, someone good. Maybe one of my enemies, ex-NSA or a black hat turned white... hell, I don’t know! But please I need your help."

There was another round of silence again before Dmitri spoke, slower this time.

"Clean it up, or don’t call again."

Then, the line went dead.

James stared at the phone in disbelief. "He hung up on me?"

The phone slipped from his hand and clattered onto the floor.

They weren’t going to help.

He was on his own.

________

While James was panicking on his own, Ethan was calmly seated in his apartment room, watching everything unfold.

He had only just made his first move and James was already unraveling this fast.

With a smile, he spun his chair to the side where a row of dominoes was placed before his finger moved to the first domino in the row.

He then gave it the slightest tap.

Click.

The domino fell.

He leaned back, watching it topple into the next, then the next, then the next until it reached the last one.

After the first domino fell, the rest followed quickly—and James? James Brock was Ethan’s first domino.

"Should we keep attacking?" Athena’s voice came from his new desktop.

No," Ethan said, eyes still fixed on the screen, where a new email alert popped up.

James’s PR team was scrambling to put out fires that hadn’t even fully started yet. "Let him solve this, let him think that everything is fine before we hit him again."