Dive into the shadowy world of power, greed, and corruption with The Greed Beneath the Empire. Victor Clayton is a self-made billionaire, but beneath his polished exterior lies a web of deceit that holds governments and economies hostage. From his humble beginnings to becoming the architect of an empire built on manipulation, Victor’s rise is matched only by the looming threat of his inevitable fall.
As the stakes escalate, Victor must outmaneuver the system he's mastered, facing enemies in the highest echelons of power and the demons of his own creation. Will his ambition secure his legacy—or destroy everything he's built?
Fans of dark, morally complex stories like House of Cards and The Wolf of Wall Street will be captivated by this gripping tale of ambition, betrayal, and the cost of unrelenting power.
Dive into the shadowy world of power, greed, and corruption with The Greed Beneath the Empire. Victor Clayton is a self-made billionaire, but beneath his polished exterior lies a web of deceit that holds governments and economies hostage. From his humble beginnings to becoming the architect of an empire built on manipulation, Victor’s rise is matched only by the looming threat of his inevitable fall.
As the stakes escalate, Victor must outmaneuver the system he's mastered, facing enemies in the highest echelons of power and the demons of his own creation. Will his ambition secure his legacy—or destroy everything he's built?
Fans of dark, morally complex stories like House of Cards and The Wolf of Wall Street will be captivated by this gripping tale of ambition, betrayal, and the cost of unrelenting power.
Victor Clayton hadn’t always been the embodiment of greed and ambition. Once, he had been just another kid from a lower-middle-class family in the suburbs of Chicago. The skyline, with its glittering promise of prosperity, was a distant dream. Wealth belonged to other people, those whose lives seemed impossibly out of reach.
His father, Paul Clayton, was a machinist—a craftsman with calloused hands who took pride in precision but never earned quite enough to get ahead. His mother, Eleanor, taught English in a run-down public school. She held a deep belief that education was the key to a better life and did her best to instill that value in her son. She would often sit with him at their worn-out kitchen table, helping him with homework or encouraging him to read.
But Victor’s mind was drawn elsewhere. He wasn’t interested in literature or history the way his mother had hoped. What fascinated him was how the world worked—the unseen gears that kept everything moving. Even as a boy, he would watch Paul struggle to fix a broken appliance and think not about the task itself, but about who designed the machine and how much they might have made doing it.
While other kids played sports or hung out after school, Victor spent hours at the library devouring books about money, markets, investment strategies, and the rise of empires. He taught himself the language of Wall Street before he learned the names of half his classmates. By high school, he could rattle off stock prices and economic trends with the ease of a seasoned analyst.
Victor’s parents noticed his growing detachment. His father saw it as ambition but warned him not to lose sight of integrity. “Work hard, son, but don’t forget who you are,” Paul would say. His mother, on the other hand, worried that his obsession with wealth would come at the expense of his humanity.
Victor shrugged off their concerns. What he saw was the stark contrast between his parents’ sacrifices and the meager rewards they earned. That wasn’t going to be his story. He wasn’t going to break his back for a modest paycheck that barely kept the lights on. He was going to make the system work for him.
His chance came when he earned a scholarship to a modest business school—nowhere near the Ivy League, but good enough. At first, Victor struggled to fit in. He was just another kid from the suburbs, surrounded by wealthier classmates with connections and pedigrees. But where others saw barriers, Victor saw opportunities.
In class, he excelled in finance and economics, impressing professors who noted his raw talent and relentless drive. But Victor’s methods weren’t always ethical. He cheated on assignments when he deemed it necessary, manipulated group projects to boost his own grades, and networked aggressively—even if it meant exaggerating his background. He didn’t just want to succeed; he wanted to dominate.
Victor’s big break came during his junior year when he secured an internship at a prestigious investment bank. He had inflated his GPA and padded his resume to land the position, but once he was in, he thrived. He worked tirelessly, coming in early and staying late. His ambition was unmatched, and it didn’t take long for the firm’s executives to take notice. They saw a hustler—someone who understood the cutthroat nature of finance and wasn’t afraid to play dirty.
Behind the scenes, Victor was already learning the darker rules of the game. He undermined his fellow interns by feeding their ideas to senior managers while presenting them as his own. In one particularly bold move, he convinced a group of interns to pool their earnings into an “investment fund” he claimed would benefit them all. Instead, he used the money to finance his own pet projects, presenting their success as the fruit of his brilliance.
It worked. By the time he graduated, Victor had a full-time position waiting for him at the firm. The executives valued his results more than his methods, and for Victor, that was all that mattered.
Victor Clayton wasn’t just satisfied with a seat at the table. He had bigger dreams. He wanted to own every seat, every table, and every building he walked into.
“Sometimes, the only way forward is to let it fall apart and start over.”
It’s sound advice from an old friend. But self-made billionaire Victor Clayton isn’t one to let common sense get in the way of his thirst for power and control. Of everything. And everyone. You see, Victor Clayton is an investment genius whose financial acumen has catapulted him “from a modest background to the apex of Wall Street." His firm, Clayton Holdings, manages billion$ in government contracts, international investment and private funds for “the world’s most powerful figures" in this gritty and gripping novella.
But Victor Clayton isn’t exactly squeaky clean. And he’s certainly not Father Christmas. Dubbing the ruthless investor “ethically challenged” is an understatement. Truth is, Victor Clayton makes Ebenezer Scrooge look like a piker. He also makes The Wolf of Wall Street’s Jordan Belfort look like a choir boy. In fact, Victor has lied, cheated, and stolen his way to the top. He’s basically a greedy schmuck with a humungous bank account and tons of clout. And with contracts deep in the military-industrial complex, Victor knows the government will allow him to continue his schemes because they know they can’t afford not to.
Victor Clayton is untouchable.
Or is he?
We first meet Victor Clayton when he’s “just another kid from a lower-middle class family in the suburbs of Chicago.” Dad’s a mechanic. Mom’s a public school English teacher. But Victor is determined to do better. Way better. He soon becomes a self-taught Wall Street whiz kid.
He proceeds to cheat and manipulate the system while exploiting and undermining others on his race to the top. He’s a cut-throat user who leaves a trail of human detritus in his wake. After landing a plumb job at a heady financial firm, Victor is noted for his “meteoric rise.” But no one questions his methods.
Oops.
Victor soon jumps ship and opens his own investment firm, Clayton Holdings. Ten years into running the firm, Victor isn’t just an investment banker. He’s a king maker. Then he gets word that the Department of Defense is looking into his offshore accounts. Lesser mortals might get nervous. But not Victor. Because he owns pretty much everything. And everyone. He calls in favors and gets the investigation shut down. But Victor’s paranoia grows. His empire is vast. But because it’s built on a foundation of lies, fraud, and manipulation, his empire is also fragile.
With the threat of his empire being dismantled “brick by brick” unless he submits to government oversight, Victor agrees to operating under government watch and playing by their rules. But Victor’s played their game for decades. He knows every move on the board. He also knows that no one - not journalists, not politicians and not even government agencies – has the will to stop him.
But Victor’s success comes at a high price. His wife bails. His two children want nothing to do with him. His family’s gone. His allies are retreating. When national security is at risk due to Clayton malfeasance, his empire starts to crumble. Smelling treason in the water, sharks start circling Clayton Holdings.
Meanwhile, Victor is starting to wonder. For years he’s believed that power is enough – that influence and wealth can insulate him from the consequences of his actions. But he’s about to get a wake-up call. So Victor comes up with a plan to take the heat off himself and his empire. And then… Oh, wait. You’ll have to read the book yourself to find out what happens next.
The first volume in the Empire series, The Greed Beneath packs a wallop. Clocking in at under one hundred pages, it’s a lightning-fast read that’s part cautionary tale and part potential redemption story. Smart and sharp, this novella is Dickensian in its scope as it looks at what happens when you have everything you ever wanted but wind up with nothing at all. It’s a taut and tightly written tome that’ll reel you in from chapter one and not let go until the final page.
This book isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of sunshine. But if you enjoy compelling woulda/coulda/shoulda stories with a side of suspense and a thick slice of wheeling and dealing, you’ll enjoy The Greed Beneath the Empire. It’ll make you think. Bonus points: It ends on a cliffhanger. The door is left open for a sequel. Yes, please!