CHAPTER 7 – The Grandfather Behind the Empire
The word echoed through the abandoned church.
"Grandson."
The boy felt his knees weaken.
"No..."
"You're lying."
The elderly man smiled with unsettling calm.
"I wish I were."
He slowly removed a leather wallet from his coat and placed an old family photograph on the altar.
The boy picked it up.
It showed his father as a young soldier...
Standing beside the same elderly man.
Both were smiling.
On the back of the photo, written in fading ink, were four words:
"Dad, I'll make you proud."
The handwriting matched every letter his father had ever written to him.
His mother burst into tears.
"I burned every copy of that picture..."
The old man nodded.
"I kept the original."
The boy looked at him with disbelief.
"If you're really my grandfather..."
"Why did you let everyone think Dad was dead?"
The smile disappeared from the old man's face.
"I didn't."
"The people around me did."
He glanced toward the armed guards.
"They stopped taking orders from me years ago."
The judge stepped out from behind the soldiers.
"Enough."
He pointed a pistol at the old man's chest.
"You've talked too much."
The boy froze.
"You work for him!"
The judge laughed.
"No."
"I replaced him."
Silence filled the church.
The grandfather slowly closed his eyes.
"So..."
"It was you all along."
The judge nodded proudly.
"For twenty years."
"You built the empire."
"I stole it."
He turned toward the boy.
"Your father refused to join me."
"So I buried him."
"He escaped."
"And now..."
"You'll finish what he started."
The grandfather suddenly reached into his cane and pulled out a hidden steel blade.
Before anyone could react, he slashed the nearest guard's arm and shouted—
"RUN!"
Chaos exploded inside the church.
Gunfire thundered through the stone walls.
The priest shoved the boy toward a hidden passage behind the altar.
His mother followed close behind.
But halfway through the tunnel...
A deafening explosion shook the entire building.
The ceiling collapsed.
Dust swallowed everything.
When the boy regained consciousness...
The tunnel behind him had completely caved in.
His mother was gone.
The priest was gone.
His grandfather was gone.
Only one thing remained beside him.
The old man's cane.
Hidden inside it was another compartment.
This time...
Not documents.
Not money.
A small black ring engraved with one word:
HEIR.
As the boy slipped it onto his finger, every nearby phone suddenly vibrated at the exact same second.
A breaking news alert flashed across every screen in the country:
"Billionaire Daniel Harrison Dies in Church Explosion—Only One Legal Heir Remains."
The boy stared at the headline in horror.
His grandfather had just been declared dead...
Yet only minutes earlier, he had been standing right in front of him.
Then a final notification appeared on the phone.
A private message from an unknown sender.
May you like
"Don't believe the news."
"The real game begins now."
