From Doormat to Doomsday Billionaire!

Chapter 9: ninety million dollars of paranoia

“It’s true. Chris isn’t Rhys’s son.”

Lexi said. 

There was no point lying anymore.

Michael, Britt, and Henry had stormed back into the house looking ready to rip someone’s throat out, and Lexi had run out of places to hide. 

The moment the words left her mouth, resentment swelled in her chest.

She had told them not to go near Rhys. Had they listened? Of course not.

If they had to confront him, they could have done it quietly. Instead, they had screamed it across a gate in front of half of Maple Grove.

Now the whole street knows Lexi Stowe cheated on her husband for years. 

How was she supposed to walk to the mailbox now?

“You foolish girl! How could you be so careless? You let that bastard figure it out?” Michael growled.

He wasn’t angry about the affair. He was angry she had been sloppy.

“Exactly!” Britt jumped in, looking even more offended. “Why couldn’t you keep both? One man to sleep with, one man to pay the bills! They never had to cross paths!”

“Honestly, who cares? You broke the machine. You fix the machine.” Henry leaned forward. He didn’t really care whose child Chris was. 

“I was about to hit him up for cash again this week. Whatever I would’ve gotten, you owe me.” He added.

“What?” Lexi frowned.

“You heard me.”

Lexi’s face darkened with every sentence.

“Okay! OKAY! Jesus Christ! Shut up and listen to me for one second!” She finally exploded. 

She took a long breath, forcing the fury down.

“I just talked to Curry. He gave me the number of a lawyer. A very good one. And the lawyer thinks something is off.”

The room went still.

“Think about it. Rhys bought a twelve-million-dollar mansion in cash. He didn’t haggle. Not once.” She let that hang.

“A man doesn’t throw twelve million at a house unless twelve million means nothing to him.”

Michael stared. “You mean… that’s just the beginning?”

“Yes.”

That word killed whatever was left of their anger.

Twelve million had already sounded like a miracle. And now there might be more? Much more?

“How much?” Henry blurted, eyes lighting up.

“We don’t know. That’s the point. The lawyer says we need to dig into where Rhys got that money.”

“If he has fifty million…” Michael started pacing again.

“What if it’s a hundred?” Britt whispered.

For one long moment, all four of them could see it, piles of cash stacked to the ceiling. Greed spread across their faces.

“We’re going to be rich!” Henry exclaimed, bursting into a fit of laughter.

“Look, I’m warning you all. Stay quiet, stay calm, and let the courts hand us the money.” Lexi chipped in, her eyes flickering from one to the other.

The trio nodded like obedient dogs. Sweet promises of money tamed them better than any leash.

“Yes, yes, of course.” 

***

Across the neighborhood, Rhys had already moved on to the real work.

James Svard stood in the living room of the mansion with a thick roll of blueprints spread across the dining table.

They had served together years ago. After the military, James went into high-end structural reinforcement and secure construction, which made him the exact man Rhys needed at that moment.

He paced the property, examining walls, foundations, sightlines, his eyes narrowing as he went. Rhys’s blueprints turned the luxury villa into something that looked less like a home and more like a bunker.

“This is a serious job,” James said at last.

“I know.”

“If you want it done in two months, the schedule is brutal. Round-the-clock crews. Rotating shifts. Labor alone is going to bleed you.”

“Give me a number.” Rhys poured them a drink.

James winced. “Eighty million.”

For a house worth twelve, it was absurd. But for two months, at a work of this scale, it was honest.

“Deal.” Rhys wasn’t fazed. “Make it ninety. Use the best materials on the market, and finish in two months. You can draw up the contract.”

James gazed at him. “I’m sorry, what?”

In his entire career, he had never met a client who paid more than the asking price.

A few taps on a phone, and five million dollars landed in James’s account as a deposit.

“And if the work stops because I’m late with a payment, the delay is on me. You still get the full ninety.” Rhys added

James stared at him for a long, long minute.

Then he let out a helpless laugh. “You rich people are fucking weird.”

***

When James left, Rhys turned to the next problem.

Once construction began, he couldn’t live in the house. And every shipment of supplies he planned to order needed somewhere to land.

He called the same realtor who had sold him the mansion. Within two hours, he had signed a three-month lease on a temporary home. Twelve thousand a month, large, freshly renovated, and luxurious.

Most importantly, still inside Maple Grove.

Next problem.

He had an enormous amount of shopping ahead of him, but most of his capital was locked in the market, still growing toward the numbers he remembered. 

For now, he could only place smaller orders.

By evening that day, Rhys sat behind a wide desk in his temporary home, a laptop open in front of him, drafting a master spreadsheet of survival essentials. 

Food. Fuel. Medicine. Insulation. Weapons. Heat.

He had just added another line when his phone rang.

He glanced at the screen. It said [wife]

“Ah. Forgot to change that.”

His calculated punishment for Lexi and her parasite family was already in motion. He wasn’t about to miss this call.

He picked up.

“Yes?”