Max stood in the shadowed corner of the arena, his heart hammering against his ribs in a rhythm that matched the ticking of the sixty-second clock. He felt trapped, backed into a corner where he had no choice but to reach out to Dennis Stern. The problem, however, was the nature of the request itself. How was one even supposed to ask a man like Dennis for such a staggering sum of money?
Even if there was no cutthroat race to become the primary heir, or the intense competition Max was currently mired in, Dennis was not the type of person to just hand out capital for no reason. He was a man of cold logic and colder ledgers. What reason could Max possibly come up with that sounded sane? He couldn't exactly explain that his superpowers were directly reliant on his bank balance, and that he just needed to hold the money for a few moments to gain a temporary boost before giving it back.
