The digital screen glowed bright blue in the dim ballroom. The boy’s fingers moved with a speed and precision that made my stomach drop. He wasn’t guessing. He knew the code.
One. Nine. Eight. Five. The year the company was founded. Zero. Four. One. Two. My brother’s birthday. Seven. Seven. The number of times I had tried to buy him out before I decided to just kill him.
“Security!” I shouted. My voice cracked, losing its polished, baritone charm. I dropped the microphone. It hit the podium with a loud thud. “Get that kid away from the terminal! He’s hacking the system!”
Two massive guards in dark suits stepped out from the shadows near the kitchen doors. They moved fast, their heavy boots thudding against the parquet floor.
But they were too late.
The boy hit ‘Enter’.
The massive LED screens behind me, which had been displaying my face and the Vance Global logo, suddenly flickered. The image distorted, static rolling across the glass. Then, the screens turned a deep, blood red.
Text appeared in stark white letters, fifty feet high:
SYSTEM OVERRIDE ACCEPTED. ASSETS FROZEN. OWNERSHIP REVERTED TO: LEO VANCE.
The ballroom erupted. Shareholders stood up, knocking over their champagne flutes. The liquid splashed onto the white tablecloths, but no one cared. They were staring at the screens. They were staring at me.
“That’s impossible!” I screamed. I lunged over the podium, my hands gripping the mahogany. “He’s a minor! He’s in foster care! The court declared him incompetent!”
The boy turned around. He didn’t look like a victim anymore. He looked like a king.
“The court declared you incompetent, Uncle Arthur,” Leo said. His voice was small, but the room’s acoustics carried it to every corner. “Dad set up a dead man’s switch. If you tried to access the primary accounts without his biometric key, the system locks. But if his heir inputs the family code… the system transfers everything back to the bloodline.”
The guards reached him. They grabbed his arms.
“Wait!” Sarah, the waitress, screamed. She dropped her silver tray. It clattered loudly against the floor. She pulled a thick, leather-bound folder from her apron. “He’s not just the heir! He’s the majority shareholder! Look at the proxy forms! His father signed them over to him before the accident!”
She threw the folder at the guards. It burst open, papers flying into the air like white doves. The lead guard picked one up. He read it. He looked at me. He slowly released Leo’s arm.
“Sir,” the guard said, his voice cold. “Step away from the podium. You are trespassing on private property.”
I looked at the boy. I looked at the screens. I looked at the shareholders who were now dialing their lawyers, their faces twisted in disgust.
I had spent ten years building an empire on my brother’s blood. And in ten seconds, a ten-year-old boy in a grey hoodie had burned it to the ground.
The police arrived five minutes later. They didn’t use handcuffs. They just escorted me out the side door, past the kitchen, into the cold night air.
I looked back through the glass doors. Leo was standing at the podium. He was holding the microphone. He was smiling.
The crystal chandeliers cast a long, bright shadow across the floor, and for the first time in my life, I was standing in the dark.