Cash Back Tycoon: Spend Big, Earn Bigger

Four hundred employees and one payroll

At seven in the morning, four hundred hotel employees stood with crossed arms outside the lobby and not one of them was smiling.

Ethan watched them from the mezzanine railing with a cup of black coffee that he had not touched. The chefs wore white jackets, the housekeepers held their cleaning carts like barricades and the front desk staff had gathered in a tight, nervous knot around the fountain.

Alden Pryce stood beside him, rubbing his temples. "The rumor started at the night desk around five. Someone leaked that the bank has frozen our accounts, and now everyone believes the new owner can't afford to pay them."

"Is it a good rumor?"

"It is a true rumor, sir. That is the problem."

A tall man in a chef's jacket stepped out of the crowd and cupped his hands around his mouth. "Where is the owner?" He shouted, and the lobby echoed the question. "We want to hear it from his own mouth. Are we getting paid today or not?"

A rumble of agreement rolled through the room.

Ethan set down his cup. He had spent three years being invisible in an office where nobody had ever asked him a single question, and now four hundred people were demanding his answer. He walked down the grand staircase and the noise faded with every step.

"My name is Ethan Vance," he said when he reached the bottom. "I became the owner of this hotel last night and I will be honest with you because you deserve honesty. The bank that holds the Grand Regency's accounts has frozen them because one powerful man wants me to fail."

A woman near the front muttered, "So we are not getting paid."

"I did not say that."

He pulled out his phone and opened the banking app that Dana's team had set up an hour earlier. Then he turned the screen to the crowd, and he spoke in a clear voice.

"Your payroll is six hundred and forty thousand dollars. At noon today every one of you will receive your full wages and each of you will also receive a bonus of five hundred dollars for standing here this morning instead of walking out."

The lobby fell silent.

"Five hundred dollars," the chef repeated slowly. "Each?"

"Each. I would rather spend money on people who stay than save it for people who leave."

The silence broke into a ripple of stunned voices, and then someone at the back began to clap. Others joined, tentatively at first and then with real force until the applause rose to the high glass ceiling.

Ethan did not smile. He simply nodded because he knew that applause was cheap and trust would take much longer.

He tapped the screen once, and the transfer left the Armani store's account in a single clean motion.

The blue panel burst open.

[ Ding! ]

[ Qualifying purchase detected. Amount spent: $842,000 (payroll and bonuses) ]

[ Social value assessment: the Host invested in the loyalty of four hundred workers under direct financial attack. Social value: Extreme ]

[ Tier One Cashback is now unlocking ]

[ Reward: 100% ownership of Harbor Trust Bank, a licensed private bank with branches in three cities and assets of $210 million ]

[ Bonus: staff loyalty effect activated. All Grand Regency employees will refuse any competing offer for ninety days ]

Ethan blinked twice and almost laughed out loud.

The people who tried to cut him off from the banking system had just handed him a bank of his own.

Dana Frost took the news in the hotel's business center, where she stood with her arms folded and her eyebrows slowly rising.

"Harbor Trust," she repeated. "I have been a lawyer for twenty years and I have never seen a private bank change hands during a payroll run."

"Will it hold up?"

"The transfer documents are already registered, and the regulator's portal shows you as the sole owner." She tapped her tablet and shook her head with wonder. "I do not understand how it happened, and I have decided not to ask. What I will say is that you now have a financial institution that Victor Whitmore does not control."

"How much can the bank lend me?"

"Against the hotel and the store? A credit line of twelve million is easily within its regulatory capacity." Her expression turned to practicality. "That covers the five-million-dollar reserve for Sinclair Dynamics with seven million to spare."

Marcus had appeared at the door with two coffees and a bag of pastries and looked as though he had barely slept. "Does this mean we can save Yvonne's company?"

"It means we can try," Ethan said. "But Victor will not sit still. He expected the hotel to collapse this morning."

"He will assume the bank is a trick," Dana said. "Whatever we do it quickly and in the open. The board meeting begins at noon and he will have his lawyers on every floor."

Ethan looked at Marcus, who was chewing a croissant with the unselfconscious happiness of a man who had never expected to stand in a billionaire's office. He had not asked for anything last night, not once.

"Marcus," Ethan said. "I need someone I trust to run guest relations here and I need him to start today. The salary is ninety thousand a year."

Marcus choked on his croissant. "Ninety... Ethan, I deliver packages."

"You split your noodles with me for three years," Ethan said. "I would rather have an honest man in this hotel than a skilled one who sells me out."

Marcus's eyes turned bright. He opened his mouth to protest but then closed it again and simply nodded.

Pryce knocked on the glass door before the moment could grow awkward. His face had changed since the lobby, his tone had dropped into something cautious.

"Mr. Vance, there is one more matter that you should hear before you leave for Sinclair Tower."

"Go ahead."

"The Whitmore Group maintains a standing penthouse suite on the thirty-eighth floor, number 3801. It is usually empty, but the night manager told me that it was occupied at three o'clock this morning by a guest registered as H. Reynolds." Pryce hesitated. "The man arrived through the service entrance wearing a hat, and he asked that no staff enter the room."

Ethan went very still.

"Is there a camera in that service corridor?"

"There is, sir. The whole hotel is yours to inspect."

"Pull the footage," Ethan said quietly. "And do not tell anyone, including the Whitmores' staff, that you looked at it."

Pryce bowed and left. Dana raised an eyebrow and Ethan answered the question before she could ask it.

"Hartwell Financial reported a theft yesterday," he said. "Today a man named Reynolds is hiding in a Whitmore suite in my building. I want to know what his face looks like."

His phone buzzed before she could reply, and the screen showed a message from an unknown number.

11:45. Sinclair Tower, board level. Do not be late. Y.S.

Ethan slid the phone into his pocket and buttoned his charcoal jacket.

"Dana, prepare the loan papers," he said. "Marcus, find a car that is not black. I do not want to arrive looking like a villain."

Marcus laughed, grabbed his coat and ran for the elevator.

Ethan stood for one more moment looking out over the harbor. Somewhere inside the glittering skyline, Victor Whitmore was sipping his morning coffee and waiting for a call that said his enemy had collapsed.

That call was never going to come.