Chapter 1

“Move! You can’t even hold a hot Americano—what’s that crippled leg for, breathing?!”

Security chief Harvey shoved me hard. His gleaming tactical shoe followed through and kicked my shin—right on the tibia.

I flinched. My right leg dragged back half a step out of habit, my Adam’s apple bobbing. “S-sorry, sir… I-I’ll wipe it up… right away…”

I sprawled on the carpet like an old dog, scrambling to pick up the fallen paper cup.

Harvey looked down at me and sneered, flipping his wrist.

Splash—

He poured the remaining half cup of scalding coffee slowly and precisely onto the back of the hand I was bracing on the floor. Heat punched straight through the skin.

“Hands that shake like this don’t deserve to exist.” He tossed the empty cup into my face, then ground the toe of his shoe into my fingers. “Clean it up, cripple. Don’t let your poor-man stink rub off on my Armani.”

A few suit-wearing managers beside him burst into unrestrained laughter and strode off, stepping over my mop.

In their eyes, I was Will Fowler—bottom-tier janitorial staff at Los Angeles’ “Nova Entertainment” for three years, a stuttering, slightly limping waste of space who could only swallow humiliation.

But they didn’t know that if I wanted to, the instant his boot came down, I could have twisted his ankle apart and shoved that paper cup down his throat in 0.6 seconds.

Three years ago, I was the Seventh Fleet’s sharpest infiltration specialist.

Until I traced the laundering web behind Nova Entertainment. That night, the C4 under my off-road vehicle detonated. Three ribs snapped. I crawled through a foul LA sewer for four hours with my guts nearly spilling out—until I turned “the old Will” into a charred fake corpse.

The bass from the lobby thumped through the composite floor, vibrating against my palms and yanking me back from the smoke of memory.

The company’s annual gala had begun.

I carried my dirty mop bucket, dragged the limp I’d fabricated, and hobbled toward the edge of the ballroom.

Under the glittering chandelier stood CEO Elena, in a black custom couture gown—cold, gorgeous, and exhausted in a way she couldn’t fully hide.

My grip tightened on the mop without thinking.

She hated me. Hated me to the bone.

Three years ago, her father died in that “accident.” I—his close-protection bodyguard—vanished, leaving nothing but a melted dog tag at the scene. She believed I’d been a coward who ran. If she recognized this face—subtly altered by a silicone mask—she’d empty a magazine into me without blinking.

Boom—

The two three-meter-tall oak doors slammed open under a violent kick, and a roar of arrogant laughter tore through the room’s fake glamour.

“How could Nova Entertainment’s gala happen without Victor Vance?”

Victor—the enemy—strode in like he owned the place, trailed by more than a dozen thick-necked Blackwater mercs.

“Heard our beautiful CEO Elena can’t carry a tune?” Victor snatched the host’s mic and snapped his fingers with a grin. “Let’s spice it up—spotlight roulette. Music stops, light lands on you, you sing. Refuse? That’s disrespecting the Vance family. Tonight, nobody walks out upright.”

The heavy metal crashed into life. The spotlights went feral, sweeping the crowd like predators.

In a wave of screams, the music cut.

The blinding beam locked onto Elena on stage—no surprise. The control booth had already been bought.

Victor turned, shoved the mic into Elena’s face, his grin stretching wider. “Sing, Miss CEO.”

Elena went pale, lips clenched, staring at him without a word.

“No respect?” Violence flashed in Victor’s eyes. He grabbed a solid crystal trophy from the lectern—ten pounds at least.

“Then this trash trophy’s useless!”

Muscles bulged as he swung the heavy crystal straight at Elena’s face.

The wind screamed. If it connected, it would shatter her nose.

Elena shut her eyes in despair. No time even to scream.

Muscle memory blew through the brain’s disguise command.

Thud.

A dense, crushing impact. The hand that “couldn’t hold coffee” clamped down like a hydraulic vise and stopped the trophy midair.

The savage momentum was bled off in milliseconds—one-handed—without spilling a single drop of wine from the trophy’s rim.

The room went dead silent. Elena’s eyes flew open and pinned on me.

Damn it. Exposed.

In microseconds, my mind ran at full speed. The next instant, I deliberately stomped my left foot onto a piece of cream cake.

“Ah—!”

I shrieked in a ridiculous yelp. My body, steady as stone a moment ago, pitched forward. My “bad” right leg buckled on cue, and I crashed—along with my mop bucket—into the champagne tower.

Smash, smash, smash.

Hundreds of glasses shattered. I thrashed in shards and liquor like a drowned dog. The trophy rolled under a table.

“Elena’s stare lost its shock, replaced by deep disgust and disappointment. She probably decided the catch had been pure luck from a cripple falling.”

“Damn—where’d this lame dog come from?” Victor blinked, then exploded into even louder laughter.

His eyes spun. He kicked the mic stand down next to my booze-soaked face.

“If the CEO won’t sing, then your janitor will. Spotlight—on him!”

Snap. The spotlight locked onto me.

Two mercs rushed up, dragged me out of the glass like a dead dog, and shoved me toward center stage.

“I… I can’t…” I trembled and shrank back, glancing toward the sound booth, hoping the engineer would save me.

Instead I met the engineer’s cold grin—bribed and satisfied.

He didn’t cut the mic. He cranked the gain to the limit.

Screeeee—

A 120-decibel feedback shriek detonated across the room.

The electric squeal stabbed into every eardrum. I clapped my hands over my ears and curled into the darkest corner of the stage.

“Sing, cripple! Sing!”

A thousand eyes—contempt, mockery, schadenfreude—nailed me to a pillar of humiliation. Harvey cursed me for embarrassing the company. Victor laughed. Elena turned away as if looking at me were an insult.

Pressure. Suffocation. Despair.

Everything hit the ceiling.

I lay among broken glass, gripping the snapped mop handle, shaking like a real worthless wreck.

But in the shadows where no one could see, behind my lowered eyes, the bloodthirst of the one-man king was waking up.