I BUILT THE UNDERWORLD WHILE YOU CALLED ME USELESS

Chapter 1

"The richest man in this city owes me ten dollars." Lucian’s voice was a low, steady rasp against the torrential rain. He didn't blink. "By midnight, that ten dollars will cost him his life."

"Who the hell are you talking to?" the burly security guard snapped, stepping out from the opulent, gold-trimmed awning of the Grand Hotel.

"Myself," Lucian replied. His gaze remained fixed on the revolving glass doors.

"Well, talk to yourself on the next block. Move it, trash. You’re blocking the VIP drop-off."

"I'm waiting for someone."

"People who look like you don't wait for people inside here," the guard sneered, eyeing Lucian’s faded denim jacket and scuffed boots. "Scram before I make you."

Before the guard could reach for his baton, the glass doors slid open. Seraphina Vale stepped out, flanked by two more men in tailored suits.

"What is the delay, Marcus?" Seraphina asked. Her tone was sharp, her posture rigid inside a pristine, custom-tailored designer dress.

"Just clearing the curb, Miss Vale," Marcus said. "This vagrant won't move."

Seraphina’s gaze shifted. Her eyes swept over Lucian with overt disgust.

"Are you deaf?" she asked.

"No," Lucian said.

"Then why are you still standing where my car needs to pull up?"

"It's a public sidewalk."

"Not tonight it isn't." She crossed her arms, the diamonds on her wrists catching the streetlights. "Do you know who I am?"

"Seraphina Vale. Daughter of Arthur Vale."

"Then you know my father owns this block. You are trespassing on my patience. Move."

"I'm waiting for Arthur."

Seraphina let out a sharp, mocking laugh that echoed over the rainfall. "You? Waiting for my father? My father meets with senators, mayors, and offshore investors. He doesn't meet with alley rats."

"He'll meet with me."

"You're completely delusional." She sighed heavily, reaching into her silver clutch. "Look at you. You're shivering. You're pathetic. You're ruining the aesthetic of this entire building just by breathing the same air."

"Put your purse away, Miss Vale."

"Don't tell me what to do." She pulled out a crisp, green fifty-dollar bill, holding it up between two manicured fingers. "I know exactly how your kind works. You loiter until someone pays you to leave."

"I'm not leaving."

"Everyone has a price." With a flick of her wrist, Seraphina let the bill flutter down.

It caught the wind, drifted, and slapped flat into a deep, oily, muddy puddle right at the toe of Lucian’s boot.

"Take it," she ordered.

"No."

"Pick it up, buy yourself a hot meal, and eat somewhere far away."

"I said no."

"Are you insane? It's fifty dollars! That's probably more money than you've seen in a month. Fish it out of the mud. It's exactly where you belong anyway."

"I don't want your money."

"It's not a negotiation," Seraphina spat.

"It's a bribe for you to disappear before I have Marcus break your jaw."

"Marcus can try," Lucian said softly.

Marcus stepped forward, rolling his shoulders, but Seraphina held up a hand.

"Wait. Let me look at him." She stepped closer, her expensive perfume warring with the smell of wet asphalt. "What is it you really want? You think holding out will get you a hundred? Two hundred?"

"I want the ten dollars your father owes me."

"Ten dollars? You're making a scene and risking a beating over ten dollars?"

"It's a matter of principle."

"Principle." Seraphina laughed again, the sound cruel and biting.

"Poor people don't have principles. They have price tags. Pick up the fifty and keep the change. Consider it a massive tip."

"Pick it up yourself," Lucian said.

Seraphina’s smile vanished instantly. "Excuse me?"

"You dropped your garbage on a public street. Pick it up."

"You dare speak to me like that?"

"I do."

"Do you have any idea the kind of power my family holds?" she demanded, her voice rising over the rain. "I could snap my fingers and make sure you never find work in this city again! I could have you thrown in a cell and forgotten!"

"You couldn't employ me if you tried, and you don't own the jails."

"Arrogant scum!" she yelled. "My father's company, Vale Corporation, generated two billion in revenue last quarter. We own the tech sector! We own the commercial real estate! We own the people who make the laws in this city!"

"You own a house of cards."

"Watch your mouth!"

"Or what? You'll throw another fifty dollars in the mud?" Lucian finally stepped toward her.

He ignored the guards who instantly tensed, stepping into her personal space. "Your father's company didn't generate two billion. It shuffled two billion from shell companies in the Caymans to cover up the massive, bleeding losses in the microchip division."

Seraphina froze. "What did you just say?"

"I said your father is a massive fraud."

"Shut up! Marcus, grab him!"

"Don't touch me," Lucian commanded. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried a sudden, terrifying authority that stopped the heavy guard dead in his tracks. Lucian looked back at Seraphina, his eyes cold.

"Keep your fifty dollars, Miss Vale. You are going to need every single cent by tomorrow morning."

"You're crazy."

"Am I? The SEC didn't think so."

"The SEC?"

"They received the Cayman ledgers twenty minutes ago. The search warrants are already signed."

"You're lying! You're just a filthy beggar trying to get a rise out of me!"

"Check your phone."

"I will not play your twisted games."

"Check it," Lucian insisted, his gaze piercing her. "Unless you're afraid a 'filthy beggar' knows more about your family's empire than the board of directors."

"You're bluffing."

"Then prove it. Look at your screen."

Seraphina glared at him, her chest heaving with indignant rage. She reached into her clutch and yanked out her phone.

The screen was already illuminated.

Her eyes darted across the display. The arrogant flush in her cheeks vanished, draining away until she looked like a ghost standing under the streetlamps.

"No," she whispered.

"How many missed calls?" Lucian asked.

"Fourteen..." she choked out. "Fourteen from my father. Six from our lead broker."

"Read the text."

Her perfectly manicured hands started to shake violently. "It says... 'Do not speak to the press.

Accounts frozen.

The feds are here.'"

She looked up at Lucian, sheer panic completely erasing the haughty princess from moments before. "How? How could you possibly know this?"

"I told you." Lucian took a step back, letting the freezing rain hit his face again.

"He owed me ten dollars."

"Who are you?!" she screamed, no longer caring about the scene she was making on the open street.

"You did this? You?"

"I'm the margin call," Lucian said. "Enjoy the puddle."

He turned his back on her and walked away into the storm.

Seraphina stood completely paralyzed.

Slowly, her knees buckled. She collapsed onto the wet concrete, oblivious to the filthy water seeping into her priceless designer dress, staring blankly at the fifty-dollar bill floating in the mud.

Two blocks down, safely swallowed by the shadows of an alleyway, Lucian stopped walking. He reached into his coat and pulled out a thick, heavily encrypted burner phone.

He hit a single speed-dial button.

It rang only once.

"Is it done, sir?" a sharp, professional voice answered on the other end.

"The dominoes are falling," Lucian said, wiping the rain from his jaw.

"And the Vale stock?"

Lucian stared back down the street, toward the glowing lights of the hotel where the Vale empire was currently burning to the ground.

"Start the short-sell," Lucian commanded. "Let's see if her dress is still pretty when it's bought with debt."