The world never saw me coming. That was the plan.
The truth of my rise began not with gold or wolves, but with red — vermilion red. Blood-red.
I had watched the world as a child watches a locked door — with curiosity sharpened by hunger. But hunger turns into something else when fed scraps and betrayal. It sharpens into ambition. And mine? Mine could flay gods.
It began in the shadows. Always the shadows.
Magda had taught me the languages no one wrote down — contracts penned in curses, promises buried in sigils, power wrapped in pretty lies. But it was I who shaped that knowledge into something lethal. Into currency.
Into Vermillion Holdings.
Not a name anyone would recognize then. It was a whisper. A ghost shell company rooted in ghost cities. But even phantoms need structure. And I, for all my chaos, craved it.
