Fate’s Billionaire

Money Changes Fate Faster Than Blood

Vincent learned the second rule before the sun came up:

Power listens to money long before it listens to morality.

The safe house wasn’t really safe. Just quiet. An empty short-let apartment Lara had access to through a colleague who asked too few questions. Vincent preferred it that way. Fewer names meant fewer endings.

Lara slept on the couch, exhaustion finally winning. Vincent didn’t. He stood by the window again, he always did now, watching the city wake up.

He focused on the skyline.

Endings flared like dying stars.

CEOs. Politicians. Bankers. Men and women who moved the world with signatures and phone calls.

And one truth became painfully clear.

The people who survived longest weren’t the bravest or the smartest.

They were the richest.

Vincent exhaled slowly.

“Then I need money,” he said to the glass.

Not someday.

Now.

By 9 a.m., Vincent was walking into a private bank downtown under a false name and a borrowed suit. No gun this time. Confidence was the weapon.

A relationship manager greeted him with a polite smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

“How can we help you, sir?”

Vincent met her gaze and focused.

Her ending appeared.

Not violent. Not soon.

But tied to a financial decision she would make today.

Vincent smiled faintly.

“I’d like to access dormant accounts tied to the Drake family,” he said calmly.

The woman stiffened.

“That account hasn’t been active in years.”

“I know,” Vincent replied. “That’s why no one’s been watching it.”

She hesitated. “I’ll need authorization.”

Vincent leaned forward slightly.

“You already have it,” he said. “You just haven’t checked the secondary ledger.”

Silence.

Her fingers trembled as she typed.

Then her face went pale.

“I’ll… I’ll be right back.”

Vincent waited.

Ten minutes later, a senior manager appeared, sweating despite the air conditioning.

“Mr. Drake,” the man said carefully. “We weren’t informed you were… alive.”

Vincent tilted his head. “You were informed not to ask.”

The man swallowed.

By noon, Vincent walked out with access to more money than he had ever imagined.

Not stolen.

Not illegal.

Just forgotten.

And fate shifted, subtly, but unmistakably.

Darius Vell felt it immediately.

He sat in his penthouse, glass of whiskey untouched, watching market fluctuations that didn’t make sense.

Someone was moving capital.

Quietly. Precisely.

Not clumsy enough to be new money.

Not bold enough to be old money.

Darius smiled slowly.

“So you found your inheritance,” he murmured.

He picked up his phone.

“Activate phase two,” he said.

Vincent returned to the safe house with takeout and answers.

Lara was awake now, pacing.

“You were gone for hours,” she said. “I ran your name through everything I could find.”

“And?” Vincent asked.

“I found a death certificate,” Lara said quietly. “Yours. From ten years ago.”

Vincent froze.

“That’s impossible.”

“No,” she said. “It’s intentional.”

She turned the screen toward him.

Vincent Drake. Deceased. Car accident. No surviving family.

Vincent stared at it.

Then laughed once. Sharp. Bitter.

“So that’s why no one was looking for me.”

Lara stepped closer. “They erased you.”

“They tried,” Vincent said. “Someone failed.”

His vision hit him hard.

A car.

Fire.

A younger version of himself pulling someone from the wreckage.

His father.

Dead anyway.

Vincent clenched his fists.

“That accident,” Lara said slowly. “It connects to one of Darius’s shell companies.”

The room went very still.

“They killed my father,” Vincent said.

It wasn’t a question.

Lara swallowed. “Vincent”

“They decided his death was load-bearing,” Vincent finished coldly. “And they buried the rest.”

Something in Vincent changed then.

Not rage.

Focus.

The watchers made their next move that evening.

Subtle.

Efficient.

A leak.

Vincent’s face appeared on underground forums. Blurred photos. Rumors. A name whispered with fear.

The Variable.

Vincent watched it spread in real time.

“They’re shaping the narrative,” Lara said. “Turning you into a threat.”

Vincent nodded. “Good.”

She stared. “Good?”

“If they fear me,” he said, “they’ll make mistakes.”

His phone buzzed.

Unknown Number.

You accessed protected resources.

Vincent typed back.

Vincent: You protected them poorly.

A pause.

This path ends with you dead.

Vincent smiled.

Vincent: Everything does.

Another pause.

Then:

Final warning.

Vincent typed one last message.

Vincent: You already killed my father. You don’t get warnings.

The number went dead.

That night, Vincent made his first public move.

Not violent.

Financial.

A strategic acquisition triggered a chain reaction, one of Darius’s shell companies collapsed under scrutiny. Stock prices dipped. Allies panicked.

Bloodless.

Effective.

Lara watched the screens in disbelief.

“You did this,” she whispered.

Vincent nodded. “And I’m just getting started.”

He focused on the city again.

Darius’s ending flickered for the first time.

Not blank.

Cracked.

Vincent exhaled slowly.

“Fate bleeds,” he said.

Lara looked at him.

“Who are you becoming?”

Vincent didn’t look away from the skyline.

“Someone they can’t erase,” he replied.

Outside, the city shifted, quietly, invisibly as money, power, and fate began to realign around one man who refused to stay dead.