That night, the stale, suffocating smell typical of a third-floor attic room struck Arkael’s senses without mercy.
The cramped three-by-three-meter room was illuminated only by a dim yellow light bulb that buzzed constantly, as though it, too, was exhausted from bearing the weight of its occupant’s life.
On the worn wooden table lay crumpled bills scattered about, the hard-earned money he had made by serving wealthy middle-aged women at a nightclub in the northern district.
His rough fingers counted the bills one by one, making sure the amount would be enough to pay next month’s rent.
Before he could secure the money with a rubber band, three consecutive knocks echoed through the narrow hallway outside.
Without waiting for an answer, the rusty doorknob was pushed from the outside.
A middle-aged man in a neatly tailored black suit stepped inside, bringing with him an air of luxury that seemed completely out of place against the peeling walls of the room.
Jenar Baskara, a senior lawyer from one of the capital’s most prestigious law firms, stood tall with eyes as sharp as an eagle’s.
Behind him, two burly bodyguards in dark suits stood guard by the door.
“Your grandfather’s will cannot be negotiated, Arkael. You are now the rightful owner of the Mozaus dynasty,” Jenar said coldly.
His voice shattered the silence, making the air inside the room feel even thinner.
Arkael scoffed cynically. He tossed the last bill onto the table, then rose to his feet, his posture straight despite his clothes being damp with sweat from the night.
“Grandfather? I don’t even know who my grandfather is. Don’t come to this dump just to brag, Mr. Lawyer. I’m not part of the rotten conglomerate family you’re talking about.”
Jenar was not offended. Calmly, he pulled a thick brown envelope from inside his suit and tossed it onto the wooden table.
The sound of the envelope hitting the table was loud enough to echo through the silence of the room.
“Open it and read it yourself, or spend the rest of your life as a street slave, selling your dignity for a single red bill.”
Curiosity mixed with anger rumbled inside Arkael’s chest. He tore open the envelope.
Inside were his original birth certificate, a certificate proving ownership of the majority of the company’s shares, and an old photograph of an elderly man standing beside a young boy wearing a silver pendant around his neck.
The exact same pendant now hung around Arkael’s neck, the only inheritance left to him from his biological mother, who had died in a mysterious accident twenty years ago.
An inner conflict struck Arkael’s consciousness in an instant.
All this time, he had believed himself to be nothing more than an abandoned child who had been forced to crawl through the mud just to survive in a cruel metropolitan city.
Yet a single piece of paper in his hands had changed everything.
The noble blood flowing through his veins turned out to carry a curse and the burden of a family history filled with murder plots, betrayal, and a struggle for power worth trillions.
The elite world he had hated and mocked from afar was now calling his name, whether he wanted it or not.
“Why are you only looking for me now?” Arkael asked sharply, staring straight into the lawyer’s eyes without fear.
“Because the previous heir had to be tempered by the world of the night so he would be strong enough to face the wolves in suits sitting on the board of directors of Mozaus Corp,” Jenar replied without hesitation. “Your uncle, Dhandra Mozaus, is waiting on the throne and intends to erase the remaining legitimate bloodline. If you refuse, you’ll be dead in this alley by tomorrow morning.”
Arkael fell silent.
His breathing quickened. He glanced at the black leather suitcase containing the keys to a luxury car and his new identity, which Jenar had placed on the floor beside the bed.
He had only two choices: remain in this filthy shack as society’s trash, waiting for death, or step forward and claim the throne that belonged to his bloodline to avenge the deaths of his parents.
With a slow yet determined movement, Arkael grabbed the black suitcase. He stared at his own reflection in the cracked mirror, then gave the lawyer a brief nod.
“Let’s see just how rotten those wolves really are.”
Their footsteps thundered down the wooden staircase toward the front yard of the dilapidated apartment building.
At the edge of the highway, still wet from the remnants of the rain, a black sedan bearing a golden lion emblem was waiting with its engine running smoothly.
Jenar opened the rear door and gestured for Arkael to enter the vehicle, where the cabin was cooled by air conditioning and lined with luxurious leather seats.
The luxury car slowly left the slums behind, gliding through the city streets that had begun to grow quiet.
Yet Arkael did not know that, from the shadows of a narrow alley across the street, a pair of red eyes was watching his every move.
Someone breathing heavily gripped the handle of a small folding knife tightly before swiftly slashing across Arkael’s photograph, which had been left on a car exhibition brochure lying on the dashboard of the car whose door had briefly been left open.
Cold-blooded violence was already waiting to welcome the heir’s return to the lion’s den.
The sound of the luxury car’s engine continued to break through the silence of the capital night.
Inside the soundproof vehicle, the scent of new leather seats mixed with the elegant fragrance of masculine perfume, creating an unfamiliar atmosphere for Arkael’s lungs.
Arkael was accustomed to the smell of street dust, cheap cigarette smoke, and the damp scent of the narrow attic hallway.
The drastic change felt unreal, like a nightmare that had suddenly transformed into a theater of luxury.
His eyes remained fixed on the view beyond the bulletproof glass window, watching skyscrapers covered in neon lights pass by like fleeting shadows.
Jenar Baskara sat in the front passenger seat, busy scrolling through digital documents on a tablet glowing with a faint blue light.
Every now and then, the middle-aged man glanced at the rearview mirror, monitoring the expression of the young heir to the Mozaus dynasty who had just been pulled out of the mud.
Not a single word was exchanged between them for nearly half an hour of the journey.
The silence only gave Arkael’s thoughts more room to roar inside his head.
Countless questions, doubts, and remnants of past anger spun endlessly, demanding answers for the fate that had been forced onto his shoulders.
If what Jenar had said was true, the deaths of his parents two decades ago had not been an ordinary traffic accident as stated in the records of the corrupt police department.
There had been dirty hands behind the scenes, deliberately eliminating his father and mother so that control of Mozaus Corp would fall into Uncle Dhandra’s hands.
An uncle whose face he had never known, yet whose name had now become synonymous with deadly danger.
Arkael clenched his right fist until his fingernails turned white.
The small stab wound on his palm, a scar left from a street fight three years ago, throbbed painfully, as though reminding him that the world he came from had never been a kind place for the weak.
“We’re heading directly to the main residence on the northern hill,” Jenar’s voice suddenly broke through the silence of the cabin, interrupting the young man’s long reverie. “The entire board of commissioners and loyal servants are already waiting for your arrival there. Remember, Young Master, inside those palace walls, every smile could mean poison, and every handshake could be a deadly trap.”
Arkael slowly turned his head, staring at the lawyer’s straight back with a faint, cynical smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
“I don’t care about the board of commissioners or that old man’s threats. I only want to know one thing, Jenar. Will the blood of those who killed my parents spill across the marble floor of that palace?”
Jenar was momentarily stunned before slowly nodding without turning around.
“The law of the jungle that governed the streets where you grew up is not much different from the law of the jungle on the trading floor of Mozaus. Whoever is the cruelest and the smartest is the one who holds absolute control.”
The black sedan began entering a quiet area on the outskirts of the city, climbing a smooth asphalt road surrounded by dense, towering pine trees covering the hillside.
At the end of the road, a five-meter-high iron gate engraved with the golden lion emblem opened automatically as the security sensor recognized their vehicle’s license plate.
Beyond the gate stood a magnificent palace built in the style of classical European architecture, illuminated beneath the light of the full moon.
Tall white marble pillars rose toward the sky, surrounded by vast, meticulously maintained gardens guarded by dozens of men in black suits, each carrying a short-barreled rifle concealed beneath his jacket.
The vehicle came to a stop directly in front of the palace’s main staircase.
One of the guards hurried forward to open the car door, bowing respectfully as he welcomed Arkael’s arrival.
As Arkael’s worn boots touched the spotless, gleaming white marble floor, the night wind blew fiercely, sending the hem of his black leather jacket fluttering behind him.
Arkael lifted his head and stared at the grandeur of the building that had now officially become part of his bloodline’s inheritance, realizing that there would be no turning back from the path that had brought him face-to-face with his past.
Behind a glass window on the palace’s second floor, a pair of red velvet curtains slowly shifted, revealing the cold silhouette of someone’s eyes staring sharply down at the courtyard, watching every movement of the heir who had just stepped into a blood-soaked lion’s den.
