2026-10-30 06:51:21After dinner, Rhys went downstairs for a walk.
He had barely reached the lobby when the elevator opened and Mrs. Park marched out, dragging Jason by the sleeve.
The boy looked a little guilty when he saw Rhys. Mrs. Park shoved a glare at him until the guilt vanished.
“You’re worth hundreds of millions,” she started in, loud enough for the whole lobby to hear. “So why are you so damn petty? So the boy took a little something. What’s that to you? And you went running to property management over it like a child?”
She jabbed a finger in the air.
“We’re neighbors. Don’t make things ugly, or I won’t let this go!”
Rhys almost laughed.
Some people really were shameless to the bone.
Her grandson had stolen from him, and she was the one lecturing about manners. Now she was threatening him?
For a moment, the urge to slap the arrogance off her face was almost physical.
He let it pass.
Not yet.
He already had something planned for the Parks. If he scared the boy straight today, he’d ruin the whole setup.
So Rhys said nothing. He walked out of the building.
Behind him, Mrs. Park practically glowed with triumph. Jason’s eyes darted around the lobby, already calculating his next target.
“Jason,” Mrs. Park said, in a loud, motherly voice, “next time he orders food, just take it again. He’s rich. A little extra won’t hurt him.”
“Okay!”
With a grandmother’s blessing, the boy’s courage doubled.
A faint smile curved Rhys’s lips.
Perfect.
On his walk, he stopped at a fruit stand and bought a truckload of fresh produce.
It didn’t matter if he couldn’t eat it all. Once it went into the dimensional space, it would stay as fresh as the day it was picked.
Back home, he washed an apple and bit into it.
Crisp and sweet.
Once the apocalypse hits, fresh fruit might vanish for hundreds of years.
He needed more. Enough for several lifetimes.
Then the night passed and the next morning, he bought tools and equipment at a hardware store, then spent most of the day at the shelter overseeing the renovation.
He didn’t return to his rental until evening.
***
At the Park residence, Jason had gotten away with theft the day before and been rewarded for it.
Naturally, he was watching Rhys’s door again.
When a delivery driver arrived, left a large, elegant box in the hall, and walked away, the boy slipped out like a cat. He grabbed the box and bolted back inside.
Mrs. Park saw the size of it and smiled.
“That man actually dared to complain to property management over one little package. Ridiculous.
Today we’ll eat another one. Let that teach him a fucking lesson!”
Mr. Park looked uneasy.
“That’s someone else’s food. We probably shouldn’t eat it.”
“He’s worth hundreds of millions. What’s a little food off the plate?” Mrs. Park waved him off. “And besides, where does lottery money come from? Regular people buying tickets a dollar at a time. In a way, that money came from us.”
Jason had already ripped open the lid.
“Whoa! Lobster!”
Inside, eight courses were arranged. Lobster. Oysters. Dry-aged beef. A tiny silver dish of caviar. Several things the Parks couldn’t even name.
Everything gleamed with luxury!
Mr. Park swallowed.
“This must be expensive. What if we get in trouble?”
Mrs. Park hesitated for exactly one second.
“So what? A few hundred dollars, at most. Is he going to call the police over dinner? Jason’s a kid. We’ll say he picked it up by mistake.”
It sounded logical enough.
So the three of them dug in.
“This is amazing.”
“This beef melts in your mouth!”
“Grandma,” Jason said, with his mouth full, “can I take another one tomorrow?”
“Of course.”
None of them knew that this was no ordinary dinner.
Rhys had ordered a custom aphrodisiac tasting menu from a specialty restaurant, every dish stacked with ingredients famous for stirring a very particular kind of fire, to the groin.
With delivery, it had cost $3,500.
The Parks finished every last bite.
And when Rhys didn’t come knocking afterward, Mrs. Park’s smugness doubled.
Scared him off yesterday. Good.
“Maybe he’ll keep ordering. If he doesn’t have the guts to complain, why shouldn’t we enjoy it?”
But not long afterward, a strange heat began to climb in her waist.
Mr. Park felt it too.
The two exchanged a look.
Then they sent Jason to watch television, and disappeared into the bedroom.
For a while, the apartment was quiet.
Then the moans started.
Then stopped.
Then started again.
By the time their son and daughter-in-law came home, Jason was still sitting alone in front of the television, his eyes half-closed from exhaustion, staring at a program he’d stopped following hours ago.
His mother’s temper flared. Was this how they babysat?
She marched down the hall and shoved open the bedroom door.
“What are you two…”
Her face turned bright red.
She backed out as if the room were on fire.
Her husband frowned. “Babe! What happened?”
“Your parents… your parents…”
She couldn’t finish.
Then Mrs. Park staggered out of the bedroom, a bedsheet clutched around her, hair wild, face filled with panic, tears running down her cheeks.
“Son! Call 911! Your father collapsed!”
“What happened to Dad?”
She stammered for several seconds before forcing the words out.
“He wouldn’t… he couldn’t stop fucking me since this afternoon! And then he just dropped!”
Her son stared at her.
His father was in his sixties.
How the hell…
He didn’t finish the thought. He called the ambulance.
Not long after, paramedics rushed in, and both Parks were carried downstairs under blankets. Even with most of their bodies covered, anyone watching could tell they were barely dressed.
And when two people were wheeled out of the same bedroom together…
It didn’t take a genius to guess what had happened.
The complex wasn’t that big. The news spread like a brushfire.
“Did you hear? Something went wrong while the Parks were doing the do. They called an ambulance!”
“Their son and his wife? They’re only in their thirties.”
“No, the old couple!”
“What? They’re both over sixty!”
“Hah! They gossip about everyone else all day. Let’s see how they show their faces now.”
“Is Mr. Park even going to make it?”
“Who cares? Those two were never good people.”
“Serves them right.”
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Chapter 26: Whatever it takes
Rhys took Yvonne to breakfast. Then he took her to a car dealership.The moment they stepped inside, the staff treated them like royalty. By the time they walked out, Rhys had picked a car worth a little over seventy thousand dollars and registered it under Yvonne’s name.She was over the moon. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him again and again, too happy to care who was watching.Then Rhys bought something for himself.A Mercedes-AMG G 63 4x4².The SUV alone cost a little over three hundred thousand. The modifications would cost nearly twice that.His requirements were precise. Ballistic glass. Reinforced run-flat tires. A hardened body and undercarriage. An upgraded cooling system and air filtration. Most of all, it had to survive heavy impacts, including hailstones the size of fists.Because Rhys intended to go outside in the first days of the apocalypse.Fuel, Gasoline and diesel weren’t things he could buy by the tanker, no matter how much money he had. A private i
Chapter 25: Morning after
After dinner, Rhys drove to the bank near his apartment.As his assets swelled, he had been visiting more and more often. The person assigned to handle his accounts was Yvonne Quinn, the branch manager.Yvonne herself had been interested in him for a while.At first, maybe it had mostly been the money. But the more she watched him, the more she noticed. Rhys was calm, reserved, with a composure that seemed far older than his face. He didn’t swagger. He didn’t wear a “look how rich I am sign” on his forehead like every other man who’d ever sat across her desk with a fresh fortune.So she had begun handling his files herself, even when a junior manager could have done it.The only problem was that no matter how many hints she dropped, Rhys never took it.Until tonight.By the time they finished his last transfer, most of the staff had gone home. The lobby was dim. The hum of the air conditioner filled the quiet space.Yvonne closed the folder.“All right. That’s everything for today.”R
Chapter 24: The Pitch
Was Rhys surprised?Not even a little.If anything, he was surprised she had taken this long.“Rhys. You’re finally back.” Lexi softened her voice until it dripped like warm syrup. Then her eyes landed on the dried blood at the corner of his lip, and she hesitated for a beat. “Do you know how long I’ve been waiting here? There’s something I need to tell you.”Here it comes.He could have recited the script from memory. I was wrong. Please forgive me. You’re the only man for me.And what was it really about?The lottery, of course.If she knew his fortune had already swollen past a billion, she’d be ten times more devoted. She might even disown her whole family on the spot.Fine, he thought. I’ll play along.The world hadn’t ended yet, so there was a limit to how hard he could hit her. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy himself.“If you have something to say,say it here.” Rhys said flatly,Her face lit up.Since that disastrous dinner, this was the first time he’d stood still f
Chapter 23: Four men and a closing door
A hand slapped against the elevator doors just before they closed.They slid open again, and four men walked in.Their arms were wrapped in ink. One wore a gold earring. They might as well have had THUGS stamped across their foreheads.The drunk already standing in the elevator took one look and went gray. He backed away, but the space was so small that his spine hit the wall in two steps. The man with the earring reached past him, canceled both selected floors, and planted himself in the doorway to keep the doors open.“Paul.” A potbellied man ambled forward, grinning like a butcher at a sale. That was clearly the leader. “When are you paying us back?”Paul had sneered at Rhys earlier, smug and swaying and full of liquor. Now he shook like a chick facing a hawk.“B-Boss Hudson. Two more days. I swear I’ll have it.”His lips trembled.“More time?” Hudson slapped Paul across the face. Rhys glanced at them.“How many extensions have you had already? How many times do I have to listen
Chapter 22: The warehouse
Rhys knew nothing about the Parks’ latest humiliation. He wouldn’t have cared if he had.The next day, he walked into a dim, nameless bar on the outskirts of the city, where the neon sign had been dead for years, and the only customers were men who preferred not to be recognized.In the back booth sat a man in a black coat, black gloves, and a black hat pulled low.The moment he saw Rhys, the whole composure collapsed.“Bro!”The grin that split his face was pure sunshine. The voice that went with it was bright, loud, and twenty-something. Under the grim private-eye getup was just a kid.He had been one of Rhys’s old comrades, someone who’d bled beside him in the army.These days, he sold weapons on the black market. The gloomy outfit was just part of the brand.“You look like a funeral director,” Rhys said, sliding into the booth.“And you look like a man who just won half a billion dollars. Don’t think I haven’t seen the news.” The kid leaned in, eyes sparkling. “So? What are we b
Chapter 21: The woman who knocked on the wrong door.
“A takeout order for thirty-five hundred dollars? Are you kidding me? That’s robbery!” Mrs packed screamed at the top of her lungs.“Officer, you can’t just let Rhys make a claim like that!” Mr. Park’s son, Kang, shouted. “What kind of dinner costs thirty-five hundred dollars?”Officer Liu had been shocked by the number, too, the first time he heard it.He smiled faintly.“But it really was thirty-five hundred. We have the receipt. We visited the restaurant to confirm the order ourselves. The ingredients alone were worth more than two thousand.”The three Parks still refused to believe it.But when they laid the dishes on the receipt beside the restaurant’s records, the room went quiet.It was true.Rhys hadn’t exaggerated a single dollar.For the first time, Mrs. Park felt something unfamiliar crawl up her spine.Regret.If she had known this would happen, she’d never have let that boy touch the box.But the police had already taken the report. And the worst part was that they had sa
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