Money Reigns (The Beaumont Billionaires #1)

Chapter 1

Chapter one

War

The stain is long gone.

But I still see the blood.

Fresh hardwood stretches beneath my shoes, rich, dark, expensive. A stark contrast to the old floors, back when this place was all chipped wood and splinters, rust and rot.

Before I bought it.

Before I remade it.

Before I tried to erase it.

I thought money could sand down the past.

But I remember exactly where he fell.

Noah landed just there. Four stories down.

It was fast.

Final.

But the sound—

The sound still echoes. Not the crash of glass or the scream. Just the sick, wet thud of a body giving up against concrete.

That’s what I remember most.

We were just kids. Thirteen. All sharp edges and stupid dares.

But Noah didn’t get a funeral without cameras. I didn’t get to breakdown without headlines.

It was my name they splattered across every screen.

The golden boy turned grim tragedy.

The headlines didn’t say “grief.” They said “guilt.”

Shame curled around me like smoke.

I never even got to mourn him.

Just got battered and branded.

The Killer Prince.

I shake it off. Doesn’t matter now.

I stand in the same spot we used to dare each other to reach. Back when the windows were cracked and we were stupid and alive and thought nothing could touch us.

I was supposed to go first.

I said I’d go first.

But Noah beat me to it.

He always did.

With dares.

With plans.

With dreams.

My hands curl into fists.

The window’s new now, tempered glass, braced steel. Renovated to code. Signed off by every city inspector with a pen and a price. I paid them all.

I needed it perfect.

It still looks wrong.

There used to be a spiderweb fracture in the corner pane, barely visible unless the light hit it just right. We joked it looked like a map. Noah said it led to nowhere.

Now it leads here.

The sharp buzz of my phone rattles me back to the present.

Twenty minutes until the quarterly meeting at Beaumont Enterprises.

The machine never stops.

I take one last look at the glass before turning.

The building is almost complete; sleek, rebranded, a monument to reinvention. But I still see him. In the shadows of the frame. In the glint of sun off the glass.

Outside, the city exhales cold morning air. It’s brisk and metallic, stinging my lungs. My breath fogs the air. The skyline stretches in front of me like nothing ever happened.

But I know.

This place remembers.

The car idles by the curb, matte black, quiet. I slide into the driver’s seat. The leather hugs my frame like it knows my shape too well. I press the ignition. The engine hums, a purr of obedience.

Unlike memory.

It roars when you least expect it.

In the rearview mirror, the building stands polished and proud.

Yet the image burns inside me, the boy who didn’t get to grow up.

The one I couldn’t catch.

The one I never said goodbye to.

I shift into drive.

Let it fade behind me.

Like everything else I’ve buried.

Time polished the glass.

But it never cleaned the reflection.