The Genius Behind the Empire

Ethan has spent years absorbed in cutting-edge technology, and the PhD group chat he long ago left behind now floods with mockery: today is Ryan's wedding, and the group assumes Ethan is a failure living off his parents, fit only for a cleaner's job at Apex Technologies. Ethan knows better—Apex Technologies is merely one of the research teams under his command, and he has more than a dozen like it.

Then he reads that Ryan is marrying Chloe, the prettiest girl in the group. Chloe is supposed to be Ethan's fiancée. Her wedding certificate is already posted in the chat, while her messages to Ethan claim an urgent matter back home. In his office, her heart-shaped notes still cover the walls.

Ethan rides to the wedding hotel and slips in through the back, where Ryan's lackeys shove him to the carpet and Ryan kicks him, offering a junior cleaner's post if he kneels and barks. When Ethan's phone falls, Ryan seizes it and grinds it under his heel—and the core research stored inside is critically important.