Chapter 54
Luna didn't wait for the applause to finish.
"Well deserved."
She recapped the marker tightly, turned around, and wrote down today's agenda items on the whiteboard.
Evelyn's finger pressed against the corner of the agenda paper.
Well deserved.
Luna never said anything unnecessary. On Evelyn's first day, she'd laid out the reality of the "small pond." After the Pine Hill pitch meeting ended, she'd revised her assessment with "the person's fine too." Now she'd closed the chapter with four words.
After the morning meeting ended, Evelyn returned to her desk.
Three new interview request emails from media outlets had already appeared in her inbox. The subject lines varied, but the core message was the same: "The Inside Story Behind Parker Group's Fastest Promotion on Record."
Evelyn marked all three emails as "pending" without replying.
She opened the scanned copy of the Eastside Phase Three framework agreement, verified the clause numbers on the signature page, then forwarded it to the legal department for filing.
After finishing that, her phone buzzed.
A message from Cedric.
[Come to my office at three.]
Evelyn sent back "Okay."
---
Three in the afternoon.
Cedric's office was on the forty-second floor.
Evelyn knocked twice.
"Come in."
She pushed the door open.
Cedric stood behind his desk holding a file folder with a manila cover. He wore a navy suit today, shirt buttoned all the way to the top, tie half a shade darker than the suit.
He placed the folder on the desk and pushed it toward Evelyn with his fingers.
"Take a look."
Evelyn walked over and opened the folder.
The first page was a project list.
Three lines.
Line one: North District old city renovation area, tourism commercial comprehensive development (estimated value $320 million).
Line two: Harbor District digital cultural industrial park, overall investment attraction and operations (estimated value $280 million).
Line three: Western mountain resort area, eco-tourism planning and investment framework design (estimated value $250 million).
Three projects. Total value over $800 million.
Evelyn read through the list from top to bottom. Each project had a one-page overview attached—plot location, planning conditions, client background, competitive landscape.
Not a lot of information, but every detail was precise.
She closed the folder.
"This is your first test as deputy director."
Cedric's voice wasn't loud.
Evelyn tucked the folder under her arm.
"I've had contact with the client for the North District project before. I'll need a week to do preliminary research on Harbor District and the western mountains."
"You schedule the time yourself. Resource requests go directly to me. No need to go through Luna for approval."
Evelyn nodded once.
She took the folder from under her arm and prepared to turn around.
The corner of the folder bumped the desk.
As she reached to steady it, her fingertip brushed the back of Cedric's hand resting on the desk.
The contact area was tiny. The side of her fingertip touched a small patch of skin near the base of his middle finger.
They both stopped at the same time.
Evelyn's fingers drew back and gripped the folder.
Cedric lifted his hand from the desk and slipped it into his suit pocket.
He turned to face the floor-to-ceiling window.
The city spread out in the three o'clock afternoon sunlight outside. From the forty-second floor, the view reached the river in the distance and the skyline on the opposite bank.
Cedric's gaze didn't fall on the city. He looked down at the ground below.
"The ginkgo tree downstairs is almost yellow."
Evelyn's steps paused.
"Last year around this time was when you worked the most overtime too."
His tone was no different from usual. Stating facts. No embellishment.
But Evelyn's fingers tightened on the folder by a degree.
He remembered.
Last fall, how often she'd worked overtime at Ashford Group. Last fall, when the ginkgo turned yellow.
He'd put those two things in the same sentence.
Evelyn stood between the desk and the door, gripping the folder.
Her mouth opened slightly.
She wanted to say "thank you."
But that phrase had been said to Cedric so many times in the past three months it had lost its weight.
She closed her mouth.
Cedric still had his back to her. His shoulder line formed a clean arc inside the navy suit.
Evelyn's gaze lingered on his back for a second.
"I'll keep the overtime under control this year."
Cedric didn't turn around.
His right hand pulled out of his pocket, swung at his side once, then went back in.
"It's fine if you can't. The lighting management system keeps records. I check which desk on the thirty-sixth floor goes dark last."
The corner of Evelyn's mouth moved, a shallow motion.
She turned, pushed the door open, and walked out.
---
As the elevator descended, Evelyn leaned against the stainless steel interior wall.
The folder pressed against her chest.
She looked down at her right fingertip. The sensation from that small patch of skin where she'd touched the back of Cedric's hand still lingered on her finger pad.
Temperature on the cool side. His hand was cold.
Evelyn pushed that thought away.
When the elevator passed the thirty-eighth floor, her phone buzzed.
Evelyn pulled out her phone.
A message from Nason.
She opened it.
The text wasn't long, but every word carried weight.
[Got news about your father. He's in Singapore. And... he's not a White family collateral branch. He's the White family's eldest legitimate son. Benjamin, now goes by Brian.]
Evelyn's thumb stopped on the screen.
The elevator continued down. The floor numbers jumped from thirty-seven to thirty-six, then to thirty-five.
She read the message a second time.
White family's eldest legitimate son.
Not a collateral branch.
The information Cedric had given her before said "descendant of a White family collateral line."
Nason said eldest legitimate son.
The gap between these two definitions wasn't just a matter of genealogical placement.
Eldest legitimate son meant inheritance rights. Meant first legal priority for the family's core assets. Meant that when Benjamin was "exiled" overseas all those years ago, what he lost wasn't a marginal stake—it was control of the entire White family.
Brian.
He'd changed his name.
A man who had disappeared from public view for fifteen years had changed his name and rebuilt a commercial empire in Southeast Asia.
The elevator reached the first floor.
The doors opened.
Evelyn didn't step out.
She stood in the elevator, finger on her phone, staring at the three letters "Brian" on the screen.
The elevator doors began to close. She stepped out sideways when the gap narrowed to the last two inches.
The air conditioning in the lobby hit her face.
Evelyn locked her phone screen and put it in her pocket.
She needed to look into "Brian."
After Evelyn returned to her desk, she didn't open any work documents.
She opened her browser and typed a name into the search bar.
Brian White.
Enter.
When the search results page loaded, her finger stopped on the trackpad.
Few results. But not blank.
The first was a business journal article published two years ago. The headline read: [The Invisible Giant: The Rise and Silence of BW Fund]
Evelyn clicked in.
The article wasn't long, about two thousand words. The core content was that over the past twelve years, BW Fund had, through a series of low-profile mergers and equity operations, gradually gained control of port logistics, bulk commodity trading, and digital financial infrastructure across Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. The group's valuation had been pegged at $6.4 billion in its most recent private equity round.
The article had no photos of Brian.
Only a description: "Group founder Brian White rarely attends public events. Industry insiders call him 'the invisible tycoon.' His business style is known for patience and precision. He never accepts media interviews and has no social media accounts under his name."