After Prison, I Became The Chairman Of Olympus

002: The Fall Guy

"Wait." Nolan's grin widened, like he'd been saving something and couldn't hold it any longer. "Babe, tell him. He still thinks it was an accident."

Vanessa's mouth curved. "Oh, right. You never actually knew, did you?"

Derek's jaw tightened. "Knew what?"

"It wasn't me driving." Vanessa said it lightly, like handing over a receipt. "It was Nolan. He was drunk, he panicked, and I told him to run. Then I came and found you the next morning, crying, begging you to say it was you behind the wheel." She tilted her head, almost admiring her own work. "You never once asked to see the accident report, did you? Never once wondered why the timeline didn't add up. God, you really are simple."

The world tilted, just slightly, under Derek's feet.

"You set me up," he said. Not a question. A verdict he was only now allowed to read.

"I protected the man who mattered." Vanessa shrugged, like the distinction was obvious. "You were always going to say yes, Derek. That was the whole point of keeping you around. A boy who loves you that much will do anything you ask, and never ask why."

Nolan laughed — an easy, delighted sound, like he was watching a magic trick land. "Five years, man. Five years, and you never once put it together. That's almost impressive."

"Why," Derek said, low, "would you even bother with me at all?"

"Because you were useful back then," Vanessa said, like it was the simplest thing in the world. "You were sweet, and loyal, and dumb enough not to check. That's rare. That's valuable, right up until it's not." Her eyes swept him again — the state shoes, the split bag, the blood drying at the corner of his mouth. "And you're really not, anymore. You know what your problem was, always? You thought this was about love. It was never about love, Derek. It's about who has money, who has a name people are scared of. Nolan's father runs the Iron Talon. Six five-star hotels with his name on the deed, in this state and three others. You know what your family has? A used Honda and a mortgage."

"If your father wore a mayor's pin," she added, almost gently, like she was doing him a kindness, "I'd have kicked Nolan to the curb myself and come running back to you tomorrow. That's not cruelty, Derek. That's just math."

Nolan's hand slid down and slapped Vanessa's ass, hard, grinning straight at Derek while he did it. Vanessa yelped — a real flash of pain crossing her face — and swatted at his chest.

"Ow — Nolan, that hurt, you ass—"

"Relax, baby, I'm just showing our friend here what he never got the chance to have." Nolan's smile didn't waver. He looked Derek dead in the eye. "Five years chasing this woman, and you didn't even get into her bed. That's gotta sting worse than the slap." He leaned in, lowering his voice like he was sharing a secret between men, except it carried perfectly. "You have no idea how many ways I've fucked her. Wild doesn't even cover it. I've got about three tapes of proof, if you want a copy. Hell, I could give you a live demonstration right now, free of charge."

"Nolan." Vanessa said his name sharp, but there was no real heat in it — more performance than protest.

"What? I'm just being honest." He spun her by the waist and kissed her again, longer this time, deeper, his hand splayed possessively at the small of her back, making sure Derek watched every second of it.

When he finally pulled back, he looked at Derek with something almost like pity. "She's mine. Stay the hell away from my woman, or the next conversation we have won't be this friendly." He turned Vanessa toward the car without waiting for a response.

Vanessa slid into the passenger seat, then rolled the window down halfway, sunglasses back on. "I've got a meeting with the CEO of the Hayden Group in an hour. Can't be late for that." She said it like she was talking to a stranger who'd asked for directions. "Take care of yourself, Derek. Or don't. Doesn't matter to me either way...fool"

The Mercedes pulled away, gravel hissing under tires, and then it was gone, swallowed by the road like it had never been there at all.

Derek stood alone in the parking lot, blood drying on his lip, his bag split open at his feet.

And he smiled.

They thought they'd broken something. They had no idea what they'd actually thrown away — because they didn't know what happened inside those walls, in the yard, in the quiet hours after lockdown. They didn't know about the old man who trained him in the mornings before the guards woke, who everyone called Master Dorian, the last living heir to a tactical line older than the prison itself. They didn't know about Rowan, soft-spoken and silver-haired, who played chess with Derek every Sunday and never once mentioned that he was the reigning Chairman of Olympus — until the day he decided Derek would inherit it instead.

Two old men who'd walked into that prison voluntarily, because they said the world outside was louder and crueler than any cell block. Two men who'd chosen Derek, of everyone, to carry on something Vanessa and Nolan couldn't even imagine existed.

He wasn't leaving this parking lot as an ex-convict.

He was leaving it as the Chairman of Olympus.

First, a visit to his parents. Then, the two people who just walked away laughing would learn there were more than a hundred ways to make someone regret being born — the kind of ways that would make even the devil flinch.

The rumble came first — a convoy of black cars rounding the far bend, engines low and expensive, moving like they'd been built to be obeyed.

Two Range Rover Autobiographies led the front, followed by a trio of Mercedes-Maybach S-Classes, glass tinted so dark they looked like moving shadows.

Behind them, matte-black Bentley Flying Spurs and a pair of Rolls-Royce Ghosts rolled in perfect formation, tires silent on the cracked asphalt like the road itself had been paved just for them.

And then, closing the line, alone, was the one that made even the guards at the gate stop pretending not to stare — a Rolls-Royce Sweptail, one of the rarest cars on the planet, hand-built,

one of only a handful ever made, worth more than the entire prison behind Derek combined.

The convoy pulled to a smooth, practiced stop.

Doors opened in unison. Bodyguards in dark suits stepped out and formed two straight walls, bowing their heads as one — and only when

every man was in position did the door of the Sweptail finally open.

"Welcome home, Chairman."