CHAPTER 2

"Ares, take the alternate route," Victor Harrington's voice came through the speaker with a calm that didn't match the tension in his eyes. "The main road’s blocked with traffic."

Ares didn’t look at him. His mind was elsewhere  somewhere far from this ride, from the city that had made him, and the empire that he controlled. The skyscrapers reflected the weight of his ambition, and his hands clenched around the leather armrest, the grip a testament to the restless thoughts swirling in his head. He didn’t need another delay, didn’t need to think about the precarious state of Calloway Enterprises, the potential betrayal hanging in the air, or the weight of Charlotte’s silence.

The storm had already started. It began with a few drizzles, the kind that hinted at worse to come. But now, it poured. Sheets of rain slammed against the windshield, distorting the city’s lights into halos. The thunder cracked louder, a warning of nature’s fury, and something else    something unseen    gnawed at Ares’ gut.

Victor’s voice, muffled slightly by the pounding rain, echoed through the silence of the car. “It’s just a precaution. We’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

Ares stared out the window, watching the world blur by. The winding roads veered into the darker, less traveled parts of the city. The slower route Victor had chosen was more isolated, quieter. It felt… off. He couldn’t explain it, not the way he could explain financial forecasts or boardroom strategy. But something in the air screamed at him.

"Something’s wrong," he murmured, more to himself than to Victor. His mind flickered to Charlotte, wondering if the coldness in her eyes had more to do with him than he had thought. He wasn’t a man used to vulnerability. He had spent years building walls, creating a fortress of power. But tonight, for the first time in ages, he felt exposed, as if the storm outside mirrored the turmoil inside.

Victor, ever the dutiful driver, said nothing in response, but the car’s tires began to screech, the road ahead curving suddenly. Ares felt the tension in his chest rise, a weight that had nothing to do with the physical. It was that feeling  the one you get when someone’s watching you, when the world feels too quiet, and then...

A flash of headlights  bright, blinding  cut through the torrential rain like a knife through silk.

“Ares, look out!” Victor’s voice, raw with panic, sliced through the air. Ares whipped his head around just in time to see a dark sedan hurtling toward them from the opposite lane. The vehicle was out of control, swerving and speeding as if the driver had no care for the road, the rain, or the danger ahead. It was reckless. And terrifying.

Before Ares could react, Victor jerked the wheel hard to the right, his hands shaking, eyes wide with panic. The car skidded, tires losing their grip, and the world tilted sharply. Ares braced himself, his body slamming against the door as the car spun wildly. Time stretched, slowed, as his heart thundered in his chest. The dark sedan that had come so close was now a blur, disappearing into the chaos.

In that moment, everything was chaos. The windows rattled, and the sound of metal scraping against asphalt filled the air. Ares had a fleeting thought of Charlotte’s face  her smile, her coldness, the way she looked at him earlier that evening. It passed too quickly to hold onto.

The car rolled. Once, twice, and then...

Everything went dark.

The first thing Ares became aware of was the unbearable pain. It shot through his entire body in waves, a constant reminder that he was no longer in control of his destiny. The world around him felt distant, muffled, as though he were underwater.

A buzzing sound    a beep, sharp and rhythmic    pierced the air. It was the kind of sound you only hear in a hospital, where the sterile air feels too cold to breathe. The scent of antiseptic burned his nostrils, sharp and nauseating. Ares tried to move, to speak, but his body refused to respond. His fingers twitched, but nothing else came.

His thoughts, clouded and sluggish, fought their way to clarity. He tried to remember what had happened  why he was here. His eyes blinked, the world still a blur. Faces swam in his peripheral vision, but they didn’t come into focus. All he could hear were snippets of voices.

"Severe head trauma..." a doctor’s voice murmured from somewhere nearby.

“… his spine... doesn’t respond…” another voice, a nurse perhaps, the words blending into one incomprehensible mass.

Pain. It was everywhere. Ares gritted his teeth, the sensation of helplessness gnawing at him. His world had gone from controlled chaos  his empire, his decisions, his power  to this. Weak. Useless. Trapped in a body that didn’t work the way it once had.

“Sir... Ares, can you hear me?” the voice called again, sharper now, but distant, as if the speaker were standing at the end of a long tunnel.

Ares’ throat tightened. He wanted to speak. To demand answers. To order the world around him to obey. But nothing happened. He couldn’t move his tongue. The reality of it hit him harder than the crash itself.

The doctor, noticing his slight movement, leaned closer. “He may never walk again.”

The words cut through the fog in his mind with a finality that was too much to process. His chest constricted. His pulse hammered, louder now, filling his ears. The weight of those words  the loss of his power, his independence, the identity he had built  came crashing down on him in a single, crushing wave.

His life.

The empire he had constructed from the ground up, with nothing but grit and determination.

Gone.

For a moment, he could do nothing but lie there, his body pinned beneath the weight of the doctor’s words. But the pain... the pain forced him to focus. He wanted to scream, but no sound came. He wanted to move, to flee, but his body wouldn’t cooperate.

The soft beep of the machines was the only sound now, a cruel reminder of his helplessness. It filled the empty space around him, as if mocking the emptiness inside.

“His body... it’s responding to the treatment,” the nurse’s voice floated in again. "But we’ll have to wait and see. There’s... significant damage. His recovery will be long.”

Ares felt the cold touch of tears at the corners of his eyes, but the pain was too much, the humiliation too raw. He had built an empire from nothing, and now, he was reduced to this.

His vision blurred again, but in the haze, he saw something more. A flash of memory.

A fleeting glimpse of Charlotte. Her smile, distant, like a fading star in a darkening sky.

But then, the images faded, replaced by the harsh reality.

This wasn’t a dream. This was his life now. And he was a prisoner within it.