CHAPTER 2 — THE FIRST DOMINO
By 6:12 a.m., the sun over Beverly Hills looked almost innocent.
That was the problem with wealth—it always made disaster look like morning light hadn’t noticed yet.
Ethan Whitmore woke up to silence.
Not the peaceful kind.
The wrong kind.
His phone was already vibrating nonstop on the hotel nightstand.
Missed calls.
Board members.
Legal counsel.
Three words he didn’t understand yet: “Check the chat.”
Vanessa was still beside him, wrapped in his shirt like she belonged in the frame of a life he hadn’t agreed to ruin. She smiled in her sleep, unaware that she had already pressed send on something far more dangerous than a photo.
Ethan opened his phone.
One message.
Forwarded to the entire board.
His blood turned cold before he even read it.
He didn’t speak.
He didn’t move.
May you like
He just stared at the image of himself—half-asleep, exposed, dismantled.
And for the first time in years, CEO of Whitmore Global Logistics felt like a man who had no company left to command.
