From Doormat to Doomsday Billionaire!

Chapter 2: the pen and the knife

“What the hell are you smiling for, you bloody retard?”

Smack!

Rhys’s head snapped sideways. Heat flared across his face.

Then he turned back to the woman who had hit him.

“You slapped me,” he said.

“And I’ll do it again if you don’t pick up that pen.” Lexi’s voice was a whip. “Are you deaf, or just stupid? I’ve told you three times. Sign!”

He didn’t answer. His eyes took in the room.

Sunlight spilled across a polished desk. Cool air hummed from the vents. Beyond the glass wall, cars glided along the street.

There were no frozen corpses, no wind that could peel skin, no screaming from the dark.

Just a bank office, and a female manager sitting very still behind a mahogany desk, her pen suspended over her notepad, watching Lexi humiliate herself in public.

“I remember this room.” Rhys thought. 

Rhys had walked in here once before with a heart full of trust. He had signed away the home his parents built, so Lexi’s brother, Henry, could “launch a tech startup.”

Rhys chuckled. 

Henry had squandered every cent in a month on drugs and bad bets. Rhys spent three years paying off the wreckage.

The Stowes had called it family sacrifice. They never said whose.

“Rhys.” Lexi shoved the pen into his hand. Her nails scraped his knuckles. “It’s just a loan. Henry’s going to make us rich, and you’ll be thanking him on your knees for this. If you’re wise, you will seize this opportunity.”

“Of course. Whatever you say.” Rhys said softly.

Lexi smiled. “I knew you’d come around.”

She said to him.

Rhys lifted the loan agreement. He slowly read the line with his name on it.

Then suddenly, he tore the paper cleanly down the middle!

The halves fell to the desk like dead leaves.

Lexi gasped.

“You… You tore it. Are you insane? Do you have any idea what you just did?” She screamed at him.

“Yes. I stopped being your family’s ATM.” Rhys replied to her.

He turned away toward the manager, as if Lexi had stopped existing.

“I need every authorization my wife holds on my accounts revoked. From this moment, nothing moves without my permission.”

“Rhys! What the hell are you doing?” Lexi yelled, but Rhys ignored her completely.

“Understood, Mr. Darby. I’ll take care of it.” The bank manager didn't even spare her a look. 

“What? No! Don’t listen to him! He’s insane right now, he doesn’t know what he’s saying!” Lexi lunged for the desk, heels cracking against the marble.

“Mrs. Darby, the accounts are in your husband’s name alone. His word is the only one that matters.” the manager said with all politeness she could muster.

“Do you know who I am?”

“Erm—His wife?” The manager shrugged and rolled her eyes. Rhys smiled.

I’m going to remember you, Rhys thought.

The manager turned to him. “Would you like this done immediately, sir?”

“Immediately.”

Lexi went rigid. For years she had treated these accounts like the Stowe family’s private vault, and Rhys had swallowed every insult, paid every bill, and cleaned up every mess without once raising his voice.

So why was the dog suddenly showing teeth?

She didn’t understand. She didn’t want to. All she knew was that her cash machine was shutting down in real time.

Her shock curdled into venom.

“Who do you think you are?” she hissed, spinning on him. “You think this makes you a man? You’re nothing, Rhys! A glorified errand boy with a pulse! Everything you have, you have because I let you stand near me!”

Rhys looked at her. 

“Say that again,” he said.

That should have been a warning. But she was too angry to hear it.

“I wasted years on you! And what did I get? Nothing! Dinky little gifts, dull little dinners, a husband who couldn’t give me one thing I actually wanted!”

Her voice cracked into a shriek. 

She ripped a small velvet box from her purse and flung it at him. 

It hit his chest and burst open. Something small and golden tumbled across the floor, rolling in a long, lazy arc until it stopped against the toe of his shoe.

Rhys looked down.

His breath stopped.

A plain gold ring.

The one she had once called cheap. The one she had stolen, and flashed at him while he lay dying in the snow.

The most important object left in the world was sitting on the floor of the bank.

Rhys didn’t move. He just smiled. She had no idea what she’d just handed back.