2025-01-20 14:15:47The security guards, tall and imposing in their uniforms, approached quickly.
At that moment one of them stepped forward, his expression neutral but authoritative.
“Sir, we’ve received a report of an assault. I need you to come with us.”
Raymond raised his hands slightly, showing him the card, his voice steady.
“I didn’t assault anyone. I’m here to conduct business at this bank.”
Seeing the card in his hand, the security guard was shocked and stopped immediately.
“A Supreme Black Card?” his eyes widened, skepticism clear in his tone. “Is this true?”
This was the highest level card in this bank and this was the first time that he had ever seen it in person.
But when looking at Raymond again, he hesitated. He didn’t look like a man who could own such a card at all.
At this moment, Dahlia’s mother’s laughter rang out, sharp and cutting through the air like a blade.
“Oh come on, stop lying! The supreme black card belongs to the most powerful people in the world. Do you really think anyone’s going to believe that’s yours?” she said, her voice dripping with scorn.
Raymond’s cold gaze locked onto hers.
“Believe it or not. It’s none of your business,” he said, his voice steady.
“Oh, please! Look at you. A waiter. A nobody. Do you even realize what holding a card like that implies? It screams fraud!” Dahlia's sister snickered.
“And thank God Dahlia finally got rid of you. Imagine the embarrassment if she were still tied to you when this comes out.”
At that moment Dahlia’s mother turned sharply, gesturing to the security guard again.
“ This man is pretending to own a Supreme Black Card. What are you waiting for? Arrest him before he causes more trouble!”
Immediately the guard approached again. Compared to Raymond, Dahlia’s mother clearly looked much more like the client of this bank.
And after hearing what she said about Raymond’ job, he was quite sure that Raymond was just a swindler now.
“You loser,” the guard sneered, his voice laced with mock authority. “Hand over the card. I’m sure the police would love to know how you got it.”
Dahlia’s sister crossed her arms, her smirk curling into something even more malicious. “Honestly, it’s pathetic. A fraud trying to pass himself off as someone important? How desperate can you get?”
At that moment the guard puffed out his chest, emboldened by Dahlia's mother and sister, and reached for the card. “Let’s not make this harder than it needs to be,” he said smugly. “Just hand it over and spare yourself the humiliation.”
“I’m not handing anything over,” Raymond said evenly,standing his ground.
“Then you’re asking for trouble, you bastard!” the guard shot back, grabbed Raymond’s collar by force.
Raymond’s eyes darkened, and when he was about to resist, the heavy glass doors of the bank swung open with a sharp thud.
“Let go of your hand, you stupid thing!”
The sound silenced the scene immediately, and every head turned toward the entrance.
The senior director of the bank Malisa went out, her commanding presence instantly filling the space.
Her tailored suit hugged her frame perfectly, and her sharp heels clicked against the polished floor as she strode forward.
Her gaze fixated on the card in Raymond’s hand and her heart raced. ‘The Supreme Black Card.’
That wasn’t just any black card.
It was one of the legendary Supreme Black Cards—an exclusive symbol of global power, wealth, and influence.
Only nine existed, entrusted to the world’s most elite figures. To see one here, in the hands of a man who appeared so unassuming, was unthinkable.
The security guard tried to explain, his tone dripping with caution. “Ma’am, this man was trying to swindle-”
“Shut up!” Malisa’s voice cut through the scene like a blade, sharp and icy. She marched toward the guard and slapped him hard, her eyes blazing with fury.
The guard stumbled back, clutching his face.
“You’re fired. Leave. Now.”
The guard paled, his mouth opening and closing as he tried to form a protest, but Malisa’s sharp gaze left no room for argument. He stumbled away, humiliated, as the crowd watched in stunned silence.
Dahlia’s mother, however, refused to back down, believing there must be a mistake somewhere. “You must be mistaken,” she said, her voice rising with indignation. “This man is a fraud! He has no business holding that card, let alone being here.”
“Exactly,” Dahlia’s sister chimed in. “It’s an insult to your institution to let someone like him through the doors.”
Malisa turned to them, her lips pressing into a thin line. “Enough,” she said coldly, her voice freezing the room.
“You seem to misunderstand the gravity of your actions,” Malisa continued, her tone sharp. “Your baseless accusations and blatant disrespect are not only unfounded but deeply offensive. And I will not tolerate it.”
Dahlia’s mother opened her mouth to speak, but Malisa cut her off, her voice unyielding. “As of this moment, your membership with this bank is revoked.”
“What?” Dahlia’s mother shrieked, her face flushing with outrage. “You can’t do that!”
“Oh, I can,” Malisa replied, her voice like ice. “And I am. Furthermore, your qualifications to conduct any business with this bank are permanently canceled. You will no longer be welcome here.”
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Chapter 362
And then with the easy, unhurried calm of someone who is about to say something entirely ordinary, something that requires no fanfare, no buildup, no performance she looked at the table, at the assembled faces of the people she had known for years, at Penelope's bright, calculating smile and Serena's frozen neutrality and Eric's carefully controlled expression and Derek's genuine curiosity, and she said:"Raymond is my fiancé."The words landed in the center of the room like a stone dropped into still water.Not thrown. Not hurled with dramatic force or delivered with theatrical timing. Just—dropped. Released from Melissa's mouth with the same casual, unhurried ease that she might have used to announce the time of day or the color of her dress."Raymond is my fiancé."Five words.Twenty-three letters.And in the space of approximately two seconds, the entire social architecture of the room the careful hierarchy that had been built over years of interactions, the established narratives
Chapter 361
Melissa and Raymond were moving toward the section of the room where the principal table was set, where Melissa's place had been held by the implicit social reservation that operates in groups of people who know each other well enough to maintain each other's spaces.They sat.Side by side.Serena watched them sit.Her expression was doing several things at once—processing, calculating, resenting, and performing a neutrality that was not entirely convincing.Penelope leaned slightly toward her."I thought she doesn't bring men anywhere," Penelope said, in a voice pitched below the general ambient noise of the room."She doesn't," Serena said."Then who is—""I don't know."They looked at Raymond.Raymond, who was looking around the room with the mild interest of someone taking in a new environment, happened to glance in their direction at that moment.He met Serena's gaze briefly.Held it for exactly as long as was socially natural.Then looked away.Serena felt, unreasonably and irri
Chapter 360
At the other end of the table, Serena was still talking. Something about the fine that should be imposed for late arrivals—the group had established a tradition, early in their years together, of charging small fines for various social infractions, mostly as an excuse for humor, mostly as a way of generating the kind of low-stakes conflict that gives gatherings their energy."Honestly," Eric said, not loudly, not with particular forcefulness, but with the quiet authority of someone whose relative silence has given their words a weight that louder people in the room have not accumulated, "since Melissa is late, we should start the event. This attitude has gone on for too long. If she comes and we've started without her, maybe that's the message that actually lands." He paused. "We call it out. Properly. Tonight."Around the table, heads nodded.There was the particular satisfaction of a group that has been waiting for someone to say the thing they had all been thinking, and here it was
Chapter 359
Then at the people around her, ensuring she had an audience, which she did."Melissa ought to have been here by now," she said, and her voice carried the particular quality of someone making an observation that is also a performance aimed at the room as much as at the specific people around her. "Why would she be keeping everybody here waiting? She's supposed to be here. She's already five minutes late." She looked around with the expression of someone who is managing a reasonable inconvenience with admirable patience. "She's supposed to be here. Why is she keeping everybody waiting?"The question landed in the air of the room, and several people who had been engaged in their own conversations looked up not because they were particularly concerned about Melissa's tardiness, but because Serena's voice had the projection and timing of someone who has learned how to command a room's attention.The response came from the other side of the table.Penelope.Who was, if Raymond's reading of
Chapter 358
He moved away from the window.Began to pace not the agitated, emotional pacing of Benjamin on the other side of the city, but the deliberate, rhythmic pacing of a man whose mind works better when his body is in motion, who has known this about himself for decades and has stopped apologizing for it.His thoughts moved.Connected.Stretched between points, the way a spider's web stretches between anchor points—thin, nearly invisible, but structured, purposeful, holding a shape that is designed to catch things.*Jefferson's grandfather,* he thought. *The old man told me. He told me that he was going to Flame Fire Mountain. That there was someone he was waiting for. He asked me to come along.*He stopped pacing.*I was busy. I couldn't go. And he went alone.*He resumed.*And the person who killed Jefferson's grandson—the account was that the person ran. Ran into Flame Fire Mountain. Ran directly into Flame Fire Mountain as if it were somewhere they were going, somewhere they intended to
Chapter 357
Not what had he done. Not whether he was guilty of the thing that Mr. Black suspected him of. But fundamentally, essentially, at the root of everything: *who is this person?*Because Aldous Mercer had spent fifty years reading people had built his entire career, his entire survival, on his ability to look at a person and understand what they were and Raymond was someone he could not read.Could not place.Could not fit into any of the categories that fifty years of experience had taught him to use.That, more than anything else, was what bothered him.That, more than the suspicion, more than the picture, more than Mr. Black's carefully hedged intel—that was what made him reach for his phone without wasting another second and dial.The line rang once.Twice.Then Mr. Black picked up, the way he always did—without a greeting, without an acknowledgment, simply present on the line and waiting."I know this person," Aldous said, and he said it without preamble, without softening, because s
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