I Was The School Joke Until I Bought The City

6 The Midnight Ultimatum (Jayson Velasco POV)

"Touch a single box in this room and I will ensure the Metropolitan Police document every illegal tracking threat you just made," Elena snapped, stepping directly between my landlord’s hired thugs and the small pile of my life's remaining possessions.

Mr. Andres Grimes let out a wet, mocking laugh, gesturing with his iron crowbar toward the damp floorboards. "You have no standing here, little rich girl... this loser is officially evicted as of midnight... his employment is gone... his credit is trash... and his time in my property has expired."

"I am not going anywhere without a fight, Grimes," I growled, stepping forward to pull Elena safely behind my back, my pulse thumping wildly against my throat as the pure humiliation of the morning morphed into raw, volatile adrenaline. "You haven't issued a single legal notice... you are staging a violent home invasion because you know the courts would laugh your extortionate rent hike out of London."

"The courts cost money you do not possess, Velasco," Grimes sneered, his yellowed teeth gleaming under the flickering hallway light bulb. "But I am a reasonable businessman... your corporate firm just called my emergency contact line... it seems Senior Architect Alistair Vance needs a desperate, disposable body to log back into the server vaults tonight... he paid your outstanding arrears on the condition that you report back to the basement immediately to audit historical Crown land registries."

"My father did what?" Elena whispered, her grip tightening on the fabric of my shirt, her face contorting into an expression of intense, heartbreaking betrayal as she looked up at me. "Jayson... no... it is a trap... he is using your desperation to bind you to his contract again."

"He knows I am drowning," I muttered, the bitter reality settling heavily into my chest as I looked around my decaying flat. "He stole my skyscraper blueprint this morning... he had me fired in front of the entire billionaire board... and now he bought my debt from a slumlord just to force me back into the dungeon to do his slave labor."

"You have exactly one alternative, boy," Grimes laughed, tapping his crowbar against the doorframe. "Pack your cardboard box and sleep on the rainy East London pavement... or sign this overnight registry access waiver and get back to work for Walter's Regal."

"I will take the assignment," I said, the words feeling like shards of broken glass in my throat as Elena let out a sharp, devastated gasp behind me.

"Jayson, you can't give him your mind again," she cried emotionally, her hands slamming against my chest as Grimes chuckled and signed the digital ledger on his phone before leaving us alone. "He will completely destroy whatever pieces of you are left... let me take you to a hotel... let me protect you from them."

"With what money, Elena... your father already froze your auxiliary corporate accounts when you tried to help me this morning," I said, gently catching her wrists, my voice shaking with an obsessive, desperate intensity that made her dark eyes widen. "If I go out on that street tonight... I am finished... I need their terminal access... I need the server grids... if your father wants me to audit ancient land deeds, I will give him the most thorough audit he has ever seen."

"This is madness," she breathed, her lips trembling as she leaned into my space, the intoxicating scent of her rain soaked hair making the cramped room feel incredibly small and dangerous. "You are looking at me like a man who wants to burn the entire city to the ground."

"I am going to burn his empire first," I whispered, pulling her body flush against mine, my mouth finding hers in a sudden, punishing, possessive kiss that released all the pent up rage, desire, and heartbreak threatening to split my chest wide open. "Stay at your apartment tonight... keep your head down... let them think they broke me."

The cold, mechanical fluorescent lights of the firm's basement dungeon hummed with a depressing familiarity when I arrived an hour later. The workspace was exactly as I left it, except for a massive archive box filled with crumbling, centuries old leather bound property registries sitting directly on top of my keyboard.

"I see you crawled back exactly like the pathetic stray dog you are," Alistair Vance's voice crackled through the wall speaker overhead, dripping with patronizing satisfaction. "The firm is bidding on a massive subterranean development contract near the Central London sector... Silas Walter wants every historical Crown deed cross referenced with our modern digital zoning grids before the markets open tomorrow morning... do not sleep... do not leave your terminal... perform your function, Velasco."

"The server logs are active, Mr. Vance," I replied coldly into the intercom, my fingers typing rapidly across the keys as I initiated a backdoor tracking protocol I had hidden weeks ago. "I am beginning the data integration right now."

"Make sure there are no errors, or I will let Grimes toss you back into the rain," he snapped, disconnecting the feed with a sharp click.

I sat alone in the dark, the windowless concrete walls pressing inward as exhaustion threatened to cloud my focus. I hauled the first ancient volume onto the desk, opening pages that hadn't seen the light of day since the late eighteenth century. My eyes strained against the glare of the dual monitors as I manually input the archaic property dimensions, aligning the original royal boundary markers with the highly sophisticated 3D digital mapping software.

Hours dissolved into pure, monotonous torment, my mental state peaking with a volatile mixture of blinding anger and physical fatigue. My fingers cramped against the plastic keys as I logged deed after deed, watching the corporate software effortlessly absorb the historical data to secure Walter's multi million pound future.

It was almost dawn when I reached the documentation for the core Mayfair sector... the exact ground where Marcus Thorne’s luxury mega mansion was currently being constructed using my stolen skyscraper blueprints. I opened the modern digital zoning grid on my left screen, overlaying it with the ancient 1784 Crown land registry map on my right monitor to confirm the sector boundaries.

I froze, my blood freezing instantly as a massive, glaring mathematical anomaly flashed amber on my diagnostic screen.

"This can't be right," I muttered to myself, rubbing my bloodshot eyes as I zoomed directly into the subterranean foundation coordinates of the Mayfair project.

The digital boundary lines of the modern plot stopped exactly twelve meters below the surface level, but the original 18th century property deed showed a completely separate, independent land title tracking down into the deep subterranean rock... a title that had never been legally absorbed, transferred, or registered by Walter's Regal or the city of London.

"Velasco, upload the final Mayfair data packet to my personal drive immediately, or your contract is void!" Alistair’s voice suddenly bellowed through the intercom speaker, making me slam my hand over the monitor power switch in pure panic.

"I am just verifying the final coordinate line, sir!" I shouted back, my heart pounding violently against my ribs as I looked at the hidden legal loophole on the screen.

"You have five minutes before I come down there myself," he threatened.