After Prison, I Became The Chairman Of Olympus

006: What They Sold

The elevator chimed and Derek stepped out, Darius half a step behind him, neither one expecting what waited in the lobby.

Vanessa saw him first.

"Well, well." Her voice carried easily across the marble, pitched just loud enough to turn heads. "Look who crawled out of the woodwork. An ex-convict, and the only place he could find to visit is Hayden Group. That's almost sad."

Derek stopped mid-stride. For half a second, something in his jaw tightened — and then it settled, cold and still, the same stillness that had swallowed a slap outside a prison gate.

Nolan leaned back in his chair, grinning, nudging Vanessa's arm like he'd spotted something too good to let pass. "Hey — look at the suit, though." He whistled low, long. "Where'd you borrow that from, Derek? Because nobody in their right mind hands a freak like you a suit that nice."

"Probably stole it." Vanessa's smile sharpened, clearly enjoying the small crowd gathering around, phones lifting one by one like a wave catching light.

"Oh my God, is that real?" one of the onlookers murmured, phone already up, angling for a better shot. "An actual ex-con, in here?"

"Security should've stopped him at the door," a man in a suit muttered to his colleague, loud enough to carry. "This is Hayden Group, not a halfway house."

"That tracks, honestly," Vanessa continued, savoring the audience. "Only useful thing prison ever taught you — how to take things that aren't yours."

"Look at him." Nolan gestured lazily at Derek, then at Darius standing rigid a step behind him. "Trying so hard to look important. Even brought himself an old man to follow him around like he's somebody. Kind of embarrassing to watch, if I'm being honest."

A woman near the elevators laughed behind her hand, not bothering to lower her phone. "Get his face — this is going straight on my story."

"A convict." Vanessa raised her voice now, playing to all of them. "Bad record, no money, no family left that matters — and he's parading around Crown City's most exclusive tower like he belongs here. Somebody should call security before he steals the silverware too."

"Ban him," someone called out, half-joking, half not. "Actually ban him. This is embarrassing for the building."

Laughter rippled through the small crowd, phones tracking his every step.

Darius's jaw flexed, one hand twitching like he meant to step forward — and Derek raised two fingers, barely, a silent command. Don't.

Derek said nothing at all. He turned and walked, past her, past Nolan, past the whispering onlookers still filming, out through the revolving doors without a single word offered in his own defense.

Vanessa's voice chased him anyway.

"You can pretend all you want, Derek!" Loud enough to bounce off marble, loud enough for every phone in that lobby to catch it clean. "But we know exactly who you are. And we're going to make sure everyone else does too!"

Someone in the crowd actually applauded, two slow claps, like she'd just finished a performance.

The glass doors swallowed the sound behind him.

***

The apartment building looked exactly the way he remembered it — chipped blue paint on the mailboxes, the crack running up the third step nobody had ever fixed. He rang the bell twice and waited, telling himself the tightness in his chest was just impatience.

A man opened the door. A woman appeared behind him, drying her hands on a towel, both staring at Derek like he'd rung the wrong bell entirely.

"Can I help you?"

"I'm looking for the Cross family." Derek's voice came out steadier than he felt. "This is their apartment."

The man's brow creased. "Cross? No — we've lived here five years. Bought this place from a couple by that name."

Something cold dropped straight through Derek's stomach. "Bought it."

"That's right." The man shrugged, easy, unbothered, a man who'd clearly told this story a hundred times without it costing him anything. "All legal. Filed and sealed through the county records office, if you want to check for yourself."

Derek's hand shot out and closed around the man's collar before he'd even decided to move, yanking him half through the doorway. "What did you just say?"

"Hey — hey, easy—" The man's hands flew up, choking against the sudden grip at his throat.

"They sold the house." Derek's voice had gone quiet, dangerously quiet, dragging each word out like it cost him blood to say it. Five years of visits through smudged glass. His mother's palm pressed flat against it. His father talking about the garden, the neighbor's dog, anything except this. Never once mentioning they'd lost the house.

"Let him go!" the woman cried, hand flying to her mouth. "Please — we bought it fair, everything's on record, we didn't do anything wrong—"

Derek released him. The man staggered back, coughing, rubbing raw fingers against his throat.

"Why," Derek said. "Why did they sell it."

The woman answered, voice gentler now, no idea whose son she was explaining this to. "Their boy got sent away — hit-and-run, we heard. They had no choice. Sold the house to help cover the damages. Restitution, I think they call it." She shook her head slowly, real pity crossing her face. "Good people, the Crosses. We always wondered how good people ended up with a son like — well. No offense, sir. People around here said he was trouble."

"After that," the man added, still rubbing his neck, "some rough types started coming around asking after them. Collectors, maybe. Or worse. They cleared out not long after we closed. Heard they had it real hard after."

Derek said nothing.

That heartless monster. That filthy scumbag. The names sat in his chest like stones, heavier with every word this stranger handed him without knowing what she was actually confessing.

"Thank you," he managed, and turned, taking the cracked steps two at a time, jaw locked so tight it ached down into his neck.

Darius was already waiting by the car, hands in his coat pockets, reading the storm in Derek's stride before Derek even reached him.

"Mr. Cross. Any word?"

"They sold the house." Flat. Controlled. Costing him everything to keep it that way. "Five years ago. To cover restitution for what Vanessa did." His eyes came up, hard as flint. "Find them. Now. I don't care what it takes or what it costs."

"Understood, sir."

Darius snapped two fingers without breaking eye contact. A bodyguard crossed instantly, tablet already lit, screen turned and pressed into Darius's waiting hand.

He studied it for exactly one second too long.

"Sir," he said carefully, turning the screen so Derek could see the address glowing above a map dense with red warning markers, "we found them."

Derek looked down. A name he didn't recognize. A district flagged in warning-red across every block surrounding it.

"That's Ashwood Hollow," Darius said, voice lower now. "One of the worst crime corridors left in Crown City. People don't walk those streets after dark, Mr. Cross. Some don't walk them at all."

The temperature in Derek's chest dropped to somewhere past cold.

"Drive," he said. "Now. Every second we sit here is a second too long."