Chapter 323: A Discarded Pawn

John wanted to dismiss the possibility. He wanted to believe that Kristoff had hired hackers, manipulated the online discussions, and engineered his miraculous comeback.

Anything was preferable to admitting that his opponent had been smarter than him.

But no matter how many times he searched for an excuse, the result remained unchanged.

Kristoff had won.

And John had lost.

Then another realization struck him.

The two percent of Dalton Corporation’s shares he had schemed to take from Henry Dalton had been recovered by Kristoff.

Kristoff hadn’t just taken back the two percent. He had made John’s entire scheme cost him far more than he had ever anticipated.

John’s face twitched.

He had entered the bet believing he held every advantage. He thought Kristoff was reckless and he had looked down on him as a spoiled heir who had inherited his position without understanding the ruthlessness required to keep it.

What a fool he had been.

He had mistaken youth for inexperience, and restraint for weakness.

All the while, Kristoff had been making his moves while his confidence made him lax.

And John, blinded by his own arrogance, had walked straight into the trap.

His grip on the tablet loosened.

The screen slipped against the bedsheet, displaying yet another headline celebrating Kristoff Dalton’s victory.

John stared at it, his eyes burning with helpless fury.

He had wanted to teach Kristoff a lesson. Instead, Kristoff had taught him one. A lesson that had cost him money, pride, and his health.

And the most unbearable part?

He still couldn’t figure out exactly when he had lost control of the game.

John Ascott had spent a lifetime believing that he was the man who decided who would rise and who would fall.

Now, lying helplessly in a hospital bed, he finally understood the truth.

He had never been the master of this game.

He had merely been another player who had mistaken his arrogance for invincibility.

And when the final results came in, there was no suspense left. No room for excuses. No way to rewrite the outcome.

The winner was Kristoff Dalton.

And the biggest loser?

John Ascott himself.

...

At Pollus headquarters, Marco was on the verge of losing his mind.

Fragments of expensive vases lay scattered beneath his desk, their intricate patterns reduced to worthless shards.

The air was thick with the scent of crushed flowers and the sharp, lingering smell of broken ceramics.

Yet even the destruction around him did nothing to ease the fury burning inside him.

"Damn it!"

Marco snatched another vase from the shelf and hurled it against the wall.

CRASH!

The vase exploded into pieces.

His carefully orchestrated scheme had backfired. What was supposed to be a devastating scandal that would destroy Kristoff Dalton’s reputation had instead strengthened the Dalton company’s position.

And he was treated as a hero.

Worse, the Foster family had emerged as another beneficiary.

He had intended to drag Kristoff through the mud, weaken his company, and seize the opportunity to crush his rival once and for all.

Instead, he had practically handed both the Daltons and the Fosters an unexpected advantage.

It was a humiliating failure.

And Marco Pollus despised nothing more than losing.

His jaw tightened as he surveyed the wreckage scattered across his office.

Kristoff Dalton had always been a thorn in his side, but now the situation had become far more complicated. His chances of defeating Kristoff had diminished considerably, and with Morgan Foster’s position solidified, Marco had another formidable opponent to contend with.

What had begun as a calculated move to bring down one rival had now put him at odds with two of the most powerful CEOs in the business world.

But Marco was not about to let either of them win.

Two powerful CEOs stood in his way.

Two formidable business empires he could no longer afford to underestimate.

How the hell did things get this far?

Marco’s fingers curled into fists.

He couldn’t accept this. He wouldn’t.

He had spent years building Pollus Corporation into a force to be reckoned with. He had sacrificed too much, schemed too carefully, and fought too ruthlessly so he could topple Kristoff Dalton and Morgan Foster who were standing in his way.

There had to be another way.

A way to turn the tables.

A way to make them pay.

Just then, a movement at the edge of his vision caught his attention.

Charlotte Harris stood near the office entrance, her expression tense as she surveyed the shattered vases and the fury etched across his face.

Marco slowly turned toward her.

For a moment, he said nothing. His gaze traveled over her, cold and assessing, as if he were examining a defective product that had failed to meet his expectations.

He had thought Charlotte would be useful.

With her connections, her public image, and her complicated involvement with Kristoff Dalton, she seemed like the perfect pawn.

All Marco needed to do was push her in the right direction and let her own resentment do the rest.

He had expected her to become the weapon that would bring Kristoff down.

Instead, she had become another liability.

The scandal she had helped ignite had spiraled beyond his control, and rather than weakening Kristoff, it had given his rival an opportunity to turn the crisis to his advantage.

Useless woman.

Marco’s eyes narrowed.

He had miscalculated. He had underestimated the Daltons, overlooked the Fosters, and placed his trust in a woman who couldn’t even manage her own downfall without dragging him into the mess.

The thought made his blood boil.

"Do you have any idea what you’ve done?" he asked, his voice deceptively calm.

Charlotte stiffened.

Marco took a slow step toward her, the crunch of broken porcelain beneath his shoes breaking the silence.

"I thought you are useful to me, Charlotte. I thought you could drag Kristoff’s name to the mud." His lips curled into a humorless smile. "But it seems I was wrong."

His gaze hardened.

"You are just as useless, another problem I have to clean up."