The city glittered beneath him, a sea of headlights and towering glass. From the top floor of a skyscraper, Owen Royal stood in silence, his figure shadowed by the dim glow of a single desk lamp. The office was sleek and expensive, the kind of place that reeked of power, but the man at its center was still. He stepped away from the massive window and into the washroom, where his reflection greeted him in the mirror—cold, sharp, unreadable.

A trace of exhaustion flickered in his dark eyes as he leaned closer to the glass. He wasn’t looking at the man he had become, but at the boy who had been forced to survive. That boy was never far away.

“Everything came at a price,” he whispered to himself. “And I paid it all.”

The story began long before this room, this life, this man. It began with death.

Owen Royale was born into one of the most feared and respected families in the country. The Royals weren’t just wealthy; they were power itself—a dynasty built on land, politics, and influence that reached every corner of society. His father, a shrewd and ruthless property magnate, was known for bending people and laws to his will. His mother, in contrast, was a scholar and teacher, a quiet force of compassion in a home where power was everything.

Owen himself was a quiet, observant boy. Even at seven, he carried himself with an awareness far beyond his years. He rarely cried, rarely spoke more than necessary, and always noticed things others missed—a quality that set him apart even as a child.

The summer air was heavy with incense and sorrow. Owen was seven years old when he stood in the middle of a crowd that seemed to stretch for miles. At the center of it all lay his older brother.

The funeral was nothing like the ones other children knew—this was a display of power, grief, and wealth. Thousands had come: government ministers, industry magnates, property tycoons, and leaders of the land mafia. Convoys of luxury cars lined the streets, and the murmurs of the crowd blended with the sound of stifled sobs.

Owen stood apart from it all, a small boy in a pressed black suit, his hands clenched at his sides.

His brother—just a year and a half older—had been the pride of the family, the bright flame of their clan. Now that flame was gone, and grief rippled through the Royal name like a storm. Their family’s prestige was legendary: The Royal tribe ruled the largest province in the country, their influence stretching through every corner of politics and business. The Vigilante Clan, their clan, stood at the top of the hierarchy, its members feared and revered in equal measure.

His father, one of the most ruthless property magnates in the nation, stood near the coffin, his face carved in stone though his eyes betrayed a depth of pain no one dared mention. His reputation was as sharp as a blade—manipulative, cunning, and merciless in business—but in this moment, even he seemed broken.

Beside him was Owen’s mother, her shoulders trembling as tears streaked down her face. She was the opposite of her husband: a scholar, a teacher of those who had been left behind by privilege. She gave her time and wisdom to people the rest of their circle ignored. Even now, in her grief, there was a gentleness to her sorrow.

But Owen… Owen did not cry.

He watched the endless stream of mourners bowing their heads, some genuine, some only there to be seen. He heard their murmurs, their empty condolences, their hushed whispers about the “tragedy.” Yet he stood frozen, his face carefully arranged into a mask of sadness he did not feel.

He had tried. He had tried to summon tears, to scream, to fall apart the way a boy his age should. But all he felt was a weight in his chest—a heavy, suffocating guilt that made his throat burn. He didn’t cry because his grief was complicated, tangled in emotions too dark for a child to name.

And buried deep beneath that guilt was something else. Something colder.

He scanned the crowd, his sharp eyes landing on certain faces—men in suits, power brokers, rivals of his father. Even at seven, Owen could sense something in their gazes, a flicker of calculation beneath their sympathy. It was a world of predators, and his brother’s death had left blood in the water.

The murmurs grew louder as the coffin was lifted. The sobs of his family echoed through the humid air, but Owen’s lips stayed pressed into a thin line. No one noticed the way his small hands curled into fists. They saw a grieving child, fragile and innocent. They didn’t see the truth.

They didn’t see the guilt.

As the sun dipped low, casting an orange glow over the mourners, Owen slipped away from the crowd, retreating to the edge of a field nearby. He sat in the grass, knees pulled to his chest, watching as the world carried on without him. People whispered that he was too young to understand what was happening, but he understood more than they knew.

He understood that his brother was gone. He understood that his family’s sorrow was a performance as much as it was real. And he understood that from this day on, something inside him had shifted.

In the distance, his father’s commanding voice cut through the noise, issuing orders to the men around him. Even here, even in tragedy, his father held control. His mother’s sobs were softer now, muffled by the arms of family members. Owen stayed where he was, watching the scene like a stranger in his own life.

For the first time, he felt truly alone.

And in that solitude, a thought took root—a dangerous, quiet whisper that would never leave him.

This was only the beginning.

End of Chapter One: How It Begins