Cold marble pressed against my cheek, damp with my own blood. I tasted copper, thick and metallic, as I struggled to breathe.
Every breath came as a painful gasp, each one ripping through my chest like a jagged blade. They had taken everything—my strength, my allies, my future—and left me crumpled here, a shell of the man I had been.
My vision was a haze of shadow and light, but I could still make out their faces. Familiar, twisted into something unrecognizable. Men and women I'd trusted for years, my so-called "partners," the people I'd bled with to claw our way to the top. And now they were gathered, watching me fade, satisfaction glittering in their eyes like shards of broken glass.
"You really thought we were in this together?" sneered Viktor, stepping closer, his voice so smooth you could slip to your death. He'd always been the diplomat, the mediator between all of us. Or so I'd thought. Now, there was nothing in his face but cruel amusement. "Your ambition made you blind, and now it's cost you everything."
He knelt beside me, his cologne sickeningly sharp in the air. I forced myself to look into his eyes, refusing to let him see the pain.
"You were in the way," he continued, his voice soft and deadly. "You thought you could rise above us, become untouchable. But no one rises without a cost."
I wanted to spit, to curse them all, but my body wouldn't obey. I was shackled by the weight of my wounds, my muscles screaming in protest. Only my mind was free, racing with memories and fragments of what had brought me here.
Images flickered through my mind—long nights spent in sterile boardrooms, hushed conversations over coffee, dreams shared with these very people who now looked down on me as if I was nothing. I'd given up everything for them, every connection outside our shared ambition. And for what? To be discarded like some useless pawn?
"She's waiting, you know," a woman's voice cut in, low and mocking. It was Leona. The one I'd thought would be my ally till the end. She crossed her arms, her lips curling into a smirk. "That girl you were so fond of. Too bad she won't even recognize what's left of you when they find your body."
That struck deeper than any blade. My mind reeled, caught between the present agony and memories of her—bright laughter, dark eyes, a voice that used to pull me back when I was close to breaking.
She was my anchor, my sanity in a world that demanded too much. And now, they'd pulled her into their web of betrayal, just as they had with me.
Something inside me twisted, burned. Anger surged, fierce and relentless, drowning out the pain. I wouldn't die like this. Not with them looking down on me, thinking they had won. If I could hold on, if I could find a way back…
But darkness clawed at the edges of my vision, dragging me down into the abyss. My body was failing, slipping further with every heartbeat. I was alone, powerless, and helpless.
And yet, in that fading sliver of consciousness, I made a vow. If fate ever granted me another chance—if I could claw my way back from death itself—I would return. I would rise from these ashes, stronger than they could ever imagine.
They thought they had broken me, thought they had taken everything. But they hadn't. Not yet.
And when I returned, it wouldn't be as the man they had betrayed.
It would be as something far, far worse.