The Tycoon's Odyssey

With the worsening political crisis, the entire cabinet gathered in the grand meeting hall to devise a solution.

The air was heavy with a suffocating silence, the tension thick enough to be sliced cleanly with a knife.

Inside the grand meeting hall, Prime Minister Rajesh Patel sat at the head of the long mahogany table, flanked by the most powerful figures of Indra. Their faces betrayed a blend of emotions—anger, frustration, and a creeping undercurrent of fear.

The walls of influence they'd meticulously built around themselves over the decades now seemed perilously close to crumbling.

At the center of the storm stood Pratap. His face flushed with rage as he slammed his hand down onto the table, sending the crystal glasses rattling and their reverberations to echo across the room.

"I can't believe that fool would resort to this!" he bellowed, his voice reverberating with primal fury. His hands were clenched into fists and his entire frame trembled, underscoring his seething frustration.

At an age when he should be enjoying his retirement, Pratap couldn't believe that he was taking care of shits.

For a man like Pratap, a towering figure even in the influential Rajput family, being dragged into the public spotlight like this was unthinkable. The strength of his family had always been in its ability to control from the shadows, to maneuver from behind closed doors, leaving no trace of their involvement. But now, with their secrets laid bare, that veil of power was irreparably torn.

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"If this continues, we'll lose everything," Pratap muttered, his sharp gaze sweeping the room as if daring anyone to disagree with him. "We cannot sit idle. We must strike back. We must send a message."

Across the table, Amit Sharma shot up, his face twisted with frustration and his voice dripping with venom cut through the room.

"I warned you, didn't I?" he seethed, his eyes blazing. "How many times did I say that we should have dealt with him? That kid is a menace! He should've been eliminated ages ago. I said it then, but no—you all thought that he was just a nuisance. I'm saying it now—this is on all of you!"

Amit's hands clenched as he spoke, his knuckles white. Beneath his anger, there was a flicker of something else—fear. He had always known that Evan was far more dangerous, but he hadn't expected him to dismantle everything he had built over the years so quickly.

The fear gnawed at him, intensifying his rage as he spat. "You thought he was just some brat trying to play with the big leagues. But now? Now, he's tearing us apart piece by piece, and you expect me to sit here and watch?"

His voice rose, almost to a manic pitch. Amit's mind spun as he thought about the chaos that was spreading outside these walls, about all the people who were rioting on the streets. His worst nightmare had come to life.

A young, unpredictable threat who didn't play by their rules, who seemed to know exactly where to hit them where it would hurt the most. And the fear, the realization that they were now truly vulnerable, clawed at his composure.

The others in the room exchanged wary glances, some clearly unsettled by the intensity of Amit's rage. They, too, had dismissed Evan, and had thought him too young, too unseasoned. But now, as they faced the wreckage he had unleashed, they could feel that same icy fear beginning to tighten its grip around them.

It was Rajesh Patel's calm, measured voice that cut through the air and silenced the murmurs. He leaned forward, his gaze fixed firmly on Pratap. "There's one thing I don't understand." Experience new stories on empire

His words drew everyone's attention and even Amit paused, halting his outburst momentarily as he looked at Rajesh, wondering what he was getting at.

"What is it?" a minister beside him asked, his voice a low murmur.

Rajesh's eyes narrowed as he addressed Pratap directly. "I don't understand what he wants," he asked slowly, his words deliberate, each one weighing heavily in the room.

"What was he hoping to achieve with this strike? If his goal was to get some leverage, he could have used this information to blackmail us, to control us. But he didn't. Instead, he threw it all out into the open. No warnings, no demands, no negotiations. Just… an explosion."

The room fell into an uneasy silence, each person grappling with the question Rajesh had raised. Even Pratap's fiery gaze softened as he considered the question, his mind racing through the possibilities. Rajesh was right—it didn't make sense.

If Evan wanted power, he had the perfect ammunition to force their hand. But by going public, he had forfeited that opportunity. So what was his motive?

Amit's face darkened as he tried to piece it together, his fear mingling with a growing sense of bewilderment. The rules of their world didn't apply here. Evan was playing a game they couldn't understand, a game without reason, without the usual calculations. His moves defied any kind of logic, it was as if he wasn't aiming for power, but for destruction itself.

As the tense silence settled over the room once more, a certain minister leaned forward, his face shadowed with suspicion. "Perhaps," he began cautiously, "Evan is merely a pawn… used by someone else. Maybe he's a tool wielded by someone else, maybe another country, using him as a weapon to strike against us."

The suggestion rippled through the hall, drawing everyone's attention along with nods of consideration and uneasy glances. Amit latched onto the theory and nearly leaped out of his chair, his desperation clinging to the idea like a lifeline.

"Yes, that's it! That has to be it!" Amit exclaimed, his eyes gleaming with newfound certainty. "That's the only explanation! No one here would be able to bring this kind of chaos without some larger, hidden hand guiding him. He's being controlled—I'm sure of it!"

"Think about it. He had the support of Macrosoft behind him all this long. And don't forget about Suri—that bitch. You all saw Nathaniel going above and beyond to save her," he added with venom.

His words struck a chord. The room fell into a heavy silence as suspicion spread among everyone and they couldn't help but wonder if Evan had struck some deal with others.