Chapter 1

The core technology I nearly killed myself building was deleted by my own fiancée.

My adoptive mother collapsed from a brain hemorrhage, and while they fought to save her, I stood outside the emergency room clutching a critical-condition notice, shaking all over.

The next day, at her engagement party, I stormed in with red eyes to demand answers, and she just smiled and asked how a broke, adopted charity case like me thought he was good enough to marry her.

Then her childhood sweetheart shoved my head down into the cream cake, hard, while the whole room roared with laughter.

And just as they were hauling me up to throw me out, the head butler of the richest family in the city strode in with dozens of black-suited bodyguards behind him and said, with perfect deference, "Young master, the master sent me to bring you home."

1

I stood at the doors of the ICU, the critical-condition notice trembling in my grip.

The doctor's face was grim. "The patient suffered a sudden brain hemorrhage. There's a great deal of bleeding. Whether she pulls through comes down to tonight. Prepare yourself."

My adoptive mother, Kayla Fox, had never had it easy. She raised me on her own and built Fox Corp with her own two hands.

The company was finally about to break through. Land that project worth hundreds of millions and it would climb to a whole new level. How could she just collapse like this?

My phone buzzed. It was Ethan Chavez, the company's vice president.

His voice on the other end came fast and panicked. "Drew Fox, we've got a problem."

"Every bit of data for our core project, including the copies on the backup drives, has been wiped clean."

"The tech team's been on it all morning. There's no recovering it."

"The bid meeting is tomorrow. Without that data we're finished, just like that."

It hit me like a lightning strike. I froze where I stood.

That core project data was more than half a year of my mother's blood and sweat. It was the one thing keeping Fox Corp alive.

How could it just be gone?

My voice shook as I pressed him. "Did you check the cameras? Who went into the president's office?"

Ethan's answer came out furious. "Already did."

"Yesterday afternoon, Christine Pruitt came by. She said you sent her to the office to pick up the jewelry for the engagement. She used the access card you gave her to get into the president's office and didn't come out for almost half an hour."

"Besides her, nobody went anywhere near the safe where the data was kept."

Christine Pruitt. My fiancée.

I had given her the company access card yesterday, asked her to go up and grab the custom cufflinks I'd had made for us.

"That's impossible..." I murmured.

"Why would she do that?"

Ethan let out a heavy breath. "Drew, I know you don't want to believe it, but the footage is crystal clear."

"And I've heard young Mr. Henson, from Henson Group, has been meeting with her a lot lately."

"Our biggest competition on this project is the branch Dean Henson runs."

Dean Henson was Christine's childhood sweetheart, one of the well-known rich heirs in Ashford.

The moment I hung up with Ethan, I called Christine in a rage.

She picked up, impatient. "Hello? What is it?"

"I'm busy with the engagement party setup. If you've got something to say, say it fast."

I ground the words out through my teeth. "Christine. The core project data at Fox Corp. Did you delete it?"

Two seconds of silence, then her voice came, all fake surprise. "Huh? What data? Drew, what are you talking about? I don't understand."

I roared. "The cameras caught you going into my mother's office, and you're still going to lie about it?"

Her reply was cold. "What are you getting at, Drew? Are you accusing me?"

"Your family's junk little company and its data, as if I'd want any of it."

"Let me tell you, the engagement party is tomorrow. Don't go making trouble for nothing."

My voice trembled with fury. "My mother is in the ICU with a brain hemorrhage. Because the data was destroyed. My family's company is about to go under."

"Christine, you don't feel even a shred of guilt?"

Now she was angry too. "Your mother's the one with the bad health. She works herself sick and that's my fault?"

"I'm warning you, Drew. Don't go throwing your dirty accusations all over me."

"Come to the engagement party tomorrow or don't. If you don't, there are plenty of men who'd love to marry me."

She didn't wait for me to answer. She just hung up.

Rage burned through me. My mother wasn't out of danger yet, lying in that ICU. This was not going to end here.