The rain came down hard that night.
The lights of Jakarta's skyscrapers reflected in the windows of a luxury apartment on the seventy-second floor. From that height, the highway looked like a never-ending stream of light.
Yet behind those enormous windows, a young man stood alone.
His name was **Arga Mahendra**.
He was only twenty-eight years old.
In front of him, three large monitors displayed stock charts, company financial statements, index movements, and figures that looked like a foreign language to most people.
He held a cup of coffee that had already gone cold.
He didn't blink.
"Down again..."
Arga gave a faint smile.
Garuda Nusantara Technologies stock had fallen seventeen percent in less than two hours.
Investors panicked.
Financial media outlets had begun reporting on the company's corporate collapse.
Across stock-market forums, people were saying the company was going bankrupt.
But Arga looked completely calm.
He opened the company's financial statements for what felt like the hundredth time.
Revenue was down.
Debt was up.
The stock price had been crushed.
Every indicator looked terrible.
Yet one figure kept drawing Arga's attention.
Cash reserves.
"Impossible," he murmured.
He zoomed in on the screen.
Then he opened the previous quarterly report.
The figure was different.
Not by a little.
The difference came to nearly two trillion rupiah.
Arga fell silent.
Someone was hiding something.
He leaned back in his chair.
Since childhood, Arga had possessed a strange habit. He never trusted a number simply because it had been printed in an official report.
To him, numbers were only traces.
And every trace always led someone toward the truth.
His phone rang.
The name **Dimas** appeared on the screen.
Arga answered.
"Yeah?"
"Ga, are you still watching GNT stock?"
"I am."
"Sell now."
Arga raised an eyebrow.
"Why?"
"Because everything's a mess! The major investor groups are already out. Foreign capital is starting to sell off its holdings too. If you're still holding, your money could be cut in half by tomorrow."
Arga chuckled.
"What's the current price?"
"Two hundred seventy."
"What was the price when we first bought it?"
"One thousand one hundred."
"So?"
Dimas fell silent.
"So we've already taken a major loss."
"No."
Arga stared at the chart on the screen.
"It means everyone is looking at the price."
He paused for a moment.
"I'm looking at the company."
Dimas sighed.
"You really are stubborn."
"Maybe."
"So you're not selling?"
"No."
"You're going to buy more?"
Arga smiled.
"I'll buy tomorrow morning."
"Arga!"
The call ended immediately.
Arga turned his attention back to the screen.
In the world of stocks, courage and stupidity were often separated by nothing more than a thin line.
Someone who bought when everyone else was selling could be called a genius.
But they could just as easily be called insane.
Arga didn't yet know which side he was on.
All he knew was one thing.
Something was wrong with the company.
And his instincts were rarely wrong.
The next morning, at exactly nine o'clock, the stock market opened.
GNT's stock price fell again.
260.
261.
262.
263.
Within minutes, the company's value seemed to be getting destroyed from the inside.
Investors shouted on the forums.
Brokers scrambled to process sell orders.
Arga's phone kept ringing.
But he didn't answer a single call.
In front of him, the computer screen displayed one button:
**BUY.**
Arga entered the amount.
Five billion rupiah.
His hand stopped.
He stared at the figure.
Five billion was no small amount.
It was almost all the money he had at the time.
For the past five years, Arga had lived simply to build up capital.
He hadn't bought a luxury car.
He hadn't bought an expensive watch.
He didn't own a big house.
His friends often mocked him for living like a college student even though he already had billions of rupiah.
Arga didn't care.
To him, money wasn't a tool for looking rich.
Money was a weapon.
And now, he was risking almost his entire arsenal.
Click.
The transaction went through.
**BUY 5,000,000,000**
Stock price: 205.
Arga let out a long breath.
"I hope I'm not wrong."
Three seconds later...
The price dropped to 190.
Arga smiled.
"Not bad."
Then it fell again.
175.
176.
177.
His phone rang.
This time, it wasn't Dimas.
An unknown number.
Arga answered.
"Hello?"
There was no answer.
Only the sound of someone breathing.
"Who is this?"
Silence.
Then a man's voice came through.
"If you keep buying that stock, you'll lose more than money."
Arga sprang to his feet.
"Who are you?"
The call disconnected.
Arga stared at his phone screen.
His heart was beating a little faster.
Until now, he had thought he was simply uncovering an error in the financial statements.
But now someone was threatening him.
That meant something much bigger was going on.
Arga reopened the company documents.
He went through the list of major shareholders.
One by one.
Investment companies.
Banks.
Pension funds.
Institutional investors.
Then his eyes stopped on one name.
**Mahendra Capital Holdings.**
Arga froze.
The name was far too familiar.
It was his father's company.
His father had died seven years ago.
The father Arga had always believed never had any connection to GNT.
"Why is Dad's name here?"
His hands began to tremble.
He opened the old archives.
Transaction records.
Acquisition documents.
Investment agreements.
Every one of them was dated more than ten years earlier.
Arga read one document.
Then a second.
Then a third.
The more he read, the paler his face became.
His father hadn't merely been a GNT investor.
He had once been one of the company's largest owners.
And what was even more shocking...
That ownership stake had never actually been sold.
Arga rose from his chair.
"So all this time..."
A message came in on his phone.
The same number.
There was only one sentence.
**Don't investigate your father's death.**
Arga read the message over and over.
For seven years, he had accepted his father's death as an accident.
His car had skidded on a mountain road.
The case had been closed.
There had been no suspects.
No evidence of murder.
But now, for the first time, the possibility emerged that all of it had been a lie.
Arga clenched his fists.
He stared at GNT's stock price.
150.
Then 140.
He no longer cared about the losses.
He didn't care about the five billion rupiah going up in flames.
There was a much bigger question in his mind.
**Who killed his father?**
And why did the company that was collapsing hold the answer?
That afternoon, Arga went to an old office in South Jakarta.
The building barely had a sign.
On the third floor, an old man was waiting for him.
His name was **Bram Santoso**.
The former chief financial officer of Mahendra Capital.
The last person to work with Arga's father before his death.
Bram studied Arga for a long moment.
"You're looking more and more like your father."
Arga sat across from him.
"Don't talk about my face. I came here for answers."
Bram gave a bitter smile.
"I knew this day would come."
"Why did my father own GNT stock?"
"Because he knew the company would become very big."
"Then why was the stock never sold?"
Bram didn't answer.
"Mr. Bram."
"Because your father wasn't investing."
Arga frowned.
"Then what was he doing?"
Bram leaned forward.
"He was looking for someone."
"Who?"
Bram glanced at the door, making sure no one was outside.
Then he spoke quietly.
"The person who destroyed your family."
Arga fell silent.
For the first time since his father's death, a door that had been shut all this time began to open.
But before Bram could explain further, the sound of breaking glass came from the window.
CRASH!
Bram flinched.
Arga immediately stood up.
A small object fell to the floor.
A flash drive.
Bram stared at it, his face pale.
"Take it."
Arga looked at him.
"What is this?"
"Everything your father left behind."
"Why only now?"
Bram looked at Arga, his eyes filled with fear.
"Because I know they've found you."
The room's lights suddenly went out.
Darkness.
Then came the sound of footsteps in the hallway.
One.
Two.
Three.
They were getting closer.
Bram whispered,
"Go through the back door."
Arga gripped the flash drive.
"What about you?"
Bram smiled.
"It's too late for me."
A loud voice rang out from outside.
"OPEN THE DOOR!"
Arga ran.
But before leaving the room, he looked back.
Bram stood alone in the darkness.
"Arga!"
"Yeah?"
"Don't trust anyone."
The back door closed.
Arga ran down the stairs.
For the first time in his life, he wasn't chasing profits.
He was chasing the truth.
And he didn't yet know that buying five billion rupiah worth of GNT stock that morning would become the first step in transforming him from an ordinary investor...
into **the most feared stock trillionaire in the country.**
But before he could attain that wealth, Arga first had to discover who was trying to kill him.
And the first answer was apparently hidden inside a small flash drive.
A flash drive containing a single folder.
Its name:
**THE TRILLIONAIRE PROJECT.**