Leo lay on the couch with an ice pack on his chest, eyes glued to a laptop screen.
"The city's calling us criminals," he muttered.
"But the streets are calling us kings."
Jayden said nothing.
He walked to the wide glass wall that overlooked the city.
Orange County glimmered beneath them.
Corporate towers, beachfront mansions, and glitzy skylines all soft beneath his gaze, like pieces on a board.
Sienna approached, placing the portfolio on the marble table between them.
"This," she said, "is where we begin."
She opened it.
Inside blueprints, ledgers, power grids, corporate trees, and intel maps. Every contract tied to her family's company.
Every thread of influence in the region. Every exploitable crack in the infrastructure.
"Hale International," she said, "has been my inheritance. It's profitable. Clean. Safe."
She looked up at him.
"But now it becomes our weapon."
Jayden sat, flipping through pages like they were war plans.
"I don't want 'safe.' I want untouchable. I want Hale to own the air they breathe."
Sienna smiled faintly.
"Good. Because I already made a few calls."
She turned the page.
There were names.
Big ones.
Politicians. Developers. Tech executives. All wrapped around land, logistics, and legacy.
"They're waiting to sell, or to be swallowed."
Jayden leaned forward.
"We start with infrastructure. Control the ports, the fiber, the transport lines. Then we leverage it into influence buy the silence of every boardroom with better returns than they've ever seen."
Leo sat up.
"That's how you crush the Park family. Not with bullets with ownership."
Jayden's voice dropped.
"We'll build a corporate empire so deep rooted even their grandchildren won't be able to undo it."
He looked at Sienna.
"And you… you'll be the face of it."
Sienna blinked. "Me?"
"You're smart. Powerful. Elegant. The world already knows your name. I want them to fear it."
She stepped back, heart racing.
"Jayden, I've played safe for so long…"
"Then it's time to stop playing."
He stood, pain flaring through his ribs. But his presence filled the room like gravity.
"We're not just going to run a company, Sienna.
We're going to rewrite the damn rules.
I want satellites in orbit. Underground bullet trains from here to Vegas. I want a skyline shaped by Hale.
I want them to ask who gave us permission and realize we never needed it."
Sienna looked into his eyes. The ghost of a man reborn in war, now possessed by vision.
She whispered, "You sound like a tyrant."
"I sound like a king," Jayden said.
She walked toward him, slowly.
"And if I say I'm scared?"
He reached out, brushed a strand of hair behind her ear.
"Then we do it scared. But we don't stop."
Outside, the first reporters were already circling.
The world wanted answers.
Inside, the foundation of a legacy was being set one built not just on fire and violence, but on precision, vision, and ruthlessness.
A legacy that would reshape Orange County.