Mr. Harris's mouth fell open."This," Jake said, gesturing casually behind him, "is your new security detail."Mr. Harris looked at the row of men like a child looking at a line of superheroes."These guys are actually going to work here?" he whispered."Every single day of your trial month," Jake said. "Two at the entrance. Two roaming the aisles. Two in produce specifically. The rest cover exits and blind spots."Mr. Harris straightened his tie. He stood a little taller. The bags under his eyes seemed to shrink in real time."I feel like I just hired the Secret Service for a grocery store," he said, almost smiling for the first time in days."You kind of did," Jake said.The store opened at eight. By eight fifteen, every regular customer who walked in glanced at the suited guards and immediately put on their best behavior. The produce section was quiet as a library.At eight forty seven, Margaret Chen walked through the automatic doors.She was wearing a brand new outfit. Bright pin

"How am I supposed to win against this woman? She's like a cockroach in a five star kitchen. You can't kill it, you can't ignore it, and the moment someone sees it, they never come back."Jake was quiet for a moment."Let me call my boss," he said. "He's good with impossible problems."Jake hung up and dialed Ethan.Ethan answered from the living room of his Riverside Towers penthouse, feet up on the coffee table, a glass of iced tea sweating in his hand."What's up?" Ethan said."The supermarket situation just got worse," Jake said, and laid out the whole mess. The removal, the witnesses, the customers leaving, Harris losing his mind on the phone.Ethan listened without interrupting. When Jake finished, there was a pause."Buy it," Ethan said.Jake blinked."Buy what?""The supermarket," Ethan said, like he was suggesting they order lunch. "Buy the whole thing. The building, the land, the brand, everything."Jake pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it for two full second

[SYSTEM ALERT: Transaction Complete. Purchase Amount: $5,000,000,000. Cashback Reward: 10x Return. $50,000,000,000 credited to account.]Ethan's eyes widened just slightly.Fifty billion dollars. Deposited in a single heartbeat.[Current Balance: $53,247,000,000]Then a second notification flashed.[MILESTONE UNLOCKED: Single transaction rebate exceeding $10,000,000,000. Special Reward Selection activated. Choose one of four unique rewards.]Four glowing options appeared in his mind like cards being laid face up on a table.Option 1: Lifespan Extension, ten additional years of peak physical health.Option 2: Photographic Memory, permanent and irreversible enhancement of cognitive recall.Option 3: Master Level Martial Arts, instant combat proficiency equivalent to twenty years of elite training.Option 4: Emotional Immunity, permanent elimination of guilt, regret, and emotional vulnerability.Ethan read each one carefully.Photographic memory was useful, but he already had Rachel and

"I want to invest ten billion dollars into creating the most powerful legal institution in the world," Ethan said, his voice steady and unhurried. "You would be the founder. Full autonomy. Complete control over every hire, every case, every decision. You choose the partners, you choose the associates, you set the standards. The firm carries your name, your vision, your rules."Rachel stared at him. Her hands, which had been perfectly still on the table, moved just slightly. She laced her fingers together."Ten billion," she repeated."Ten billion," Ethan confirmed. "Enough to recruit the best legal minds on every continent. Enough to build offices in New York, London, Hong Kong, Dubai, wherever you want them. Enough to make every law firm in America look like a strip mall operation by comparison."Rachel's jaw tightened. Not from anger. From the effort of keeping her composure while her brain processed something that sounded like a dream dressed up as a business proposal."And what wou

Ethan stood in the middle of his living room at Riverside Towers, rolling his wrists slowly, testing the way his body responded to commands his brain had never given before.Every joint moved like it had been oiled and recalibrated overnight. His fingers knew how to grip fabric and twist a shoulder out of its socket. His hips understood angles he had never studied.He shadow grappled the air once, a single fluid motion, and stopped."Twenty years of training," he murmured to himself. "In two seconds."He sat down on the couch and pulled out a small notebook he had started keeping after the lifespan extension. He flipped to a fresh page and wrote two lines.Five billion, tenfold return. Lifespan reward.Ten billion, tenfold return. Grappling reward.He stared at the numbers and tapped the pen against the paper."The system scales with the size of the transaction," he said quietly. "Every time I hit a new order of magnitude, the rewards get bigger. It's not random. It's a ladder."He cl