PROLOGUE

      THE DRUMMING IN my ears was loud. So loud I had the fleeting thought that I was on the verge of suffering a stroke. Of doing myself irreparable harm and comprehensively ending this debacle once and for all.

      But that would be too easy.

      And the headline…

      I could see it now.

       Axios Xenakis Suffers Stroke Due to Family Pressures!

      They would have no clue as to the unreasonable part, of course. Despite the media outlets lauding the story of the Xenakis near-ruin to phenomenal rise on a regular basis these days, they would be swift to jump on past flaws. Old skeletons would be dragged out of closets. I would be deemed weak. Broken. Not quite up to the task of managing a global conglomerate.

      Just like my father.

      Just as my grandfather had been falsely labelled after that one risky move that had seen all his hard work whittled away to almost nothing.

      He’d had to bear that one misfortune all the way to his grave.

      Once a titan of his industry, a simple decision to align himself with the wrong partner had decimated him, leaving the Xenakis name with a stench of failure that had lingered long after his death, causing insidious damage.

      Damage that had taken back-breaking hard work to reverse, with my refusal to allow my family name to sink without a trace spurring me to seek daring solutions.

      The Xenakis name was no longer one to be ashamed of. Now it was synonymous with success and innovation—a global conglomerate that Fortune 500 companies vied to be associated with.

      However, the solution being proposed to me now was one set to resurrect the unsavoury ghosts of the past, with their talons of barefaced greed—

      ‘Ax, are you listening? Did you hear what Father said?’ asked Neo, my brother.

      ‘Of