MONEY MAKES THE WORLD SPIN

The rain poured like it had something personal against him.

Jace Carter stood outside the office building, soaked to the bone, holding a box of cheap belongings, a cracked phone charger, two mugs, a worn-out notebook, and a photo of his late mother, its frame chipped from the fall.

Behind him, the glass doors of RavenCore International shut with a hiss, sealing off the laughter and sneers of his now-former colleagues. “Hey, Carter!” Jace turned.

Victor Lang, the CEO himself, leaned just outside the revolving door, holding an umbrella like a prop in a Broadway show. “Don’t forget this.” He tossed a handful of coins into the puddle at Jace’s feet. “Go buy yourself a new future.”

The coins splashed. Laughter echoed. Jace didn’t flinch. Not now. Not in front of them. He bent, picked up a quarter, and smiled coldly. “One day, you’ll beg me for this.”

Victor snorted. “Dream big, Carter. Just not while standing in the gutter.”

And with that, the man who held Jace’s future in his palm turned his back and vanished into the warm glow of success, The walk home was long, Jace had twenty bucks in his wallet, no job, no family left, and a landlord who’d already sent three warning texts.

He climbed the stairs of his rundown apartment building in silence, water squishing in his shoes. Room 4B still smelled like mold and desperation. The bulb above the sink buzzed like it was gasping for life.

He set the box down, dropped to the couch which was more springs than cushion and stared at the ceiling. How had everything gone so wrong so fast?, Just a month ago, he’d been up for promotion. He’d been dating Ava Moreno, the marketing queen everyone wanted but he somehow got. He thought he was climbing out of the pit.

Then she dumped him. On her birthday. In front of thirty people. “You’re just a phase,” she’d said, “like cheap cologne and broken dreams.”

Three days later, Victor Lang fired him during a department meeting, citing “underperformance.” Truth was, Jace had discovered shady discrepancies in the company’s finances. He was too smart for their game, so they crushed him before he could talk.

Now, at twenty-eight, he had nothing. No job. No girlfriend. No respect. No future. He didn’t cry. He never did. Not even at his mother’s funeral, Instead, Jace poured himself a glass of expired orange juice, took one sip, gagged, and dumped the rest in the sink. He opened his laptop, but it didn’t turn on, dead battery and no charger. Just another minor failure.

Somewhere outside, thunder rumbled, He lay down and closed his eyes, And then came the knock Firm. Rhythmic. Intentional. Jace jolted upright. It was 11:42 p.m. Another knock. Cautiously, he moved to the door and looked through the peephole.

A man stood outside, tall and stiff in a pitch-black tailored suit, his expression unreadable. Behind him, through the flickering hallway lights, Jace saw the silhouettes of multiple figures, and parked on the street outside, at least six sleek black vehicles lined the curb.

What the hell? He opened the door slightly. “Can I help you?” The man didn’t smile. He simply held out an envelope sealed in gold foil, embossed with a crest, a lion surrounded by a crown of thorns and stars.

“Mr. Carter,” the man said, voice low and even. “Your presence is required. You are the sole heir to the Carter Consortium.”

Jace blinked. “What?”

“The founder has passed. You are named the singular successor. Effective immediately.”

He laughed. Out loud. “This a prank? Some YouTube stunt?”

The man didn’t blink. “We do not engage in games. Kindly get dressed. You have a jet waiting.” Jet?

“This is a mistake,” Jace said. “The only Carter who had money was... my grandfather. And he died when I was nine. Didn’t he?”

The man paused. “Your mother kept secrets. Ones you deserve to learn.”

Jace’s heart kicked hard. The man handed him a sleek black card. “When you’re ready, this will unlock any door.”

Then he stepped back and waited, Jace stood frozen, staring at the card, rain still dripping from his ceiling into a rusted pot, And something inside him something cold, angry, and quiet for too long,  whispered: Go.

Twenty minutes later, dressed in his only decent shirt and jacket, Jace slid into the back seat of a bulletproof black car, The convoy rolled through the city in silence, weaving past traffic like ghosts. He had no phone signal. The windows were tinted like obsidian.

Eventually, they stopped at a private airstrip where a massive jet awaited, silver and sleek with the same crest from the envelope stamped across its body, The moment Jace stepped onto the jet, everything changed.

White leather seats. Gold trim. Champagne on ice. A woman in a midnight-blue uniform offered him a glass. He refused, The jet lifted smoothly, and the man in the suit now seated across from him finally spoke again.

“The Carter Consortium operates across thirty-nine countries. Real estate, tech, defense, commodities, AI, banking. Your grandfather built an empire. Then he vanished from public life twenty years ago.”

Jace stared. “He never spoke to us again after my mom married my dad.”

“That wasn’t a punishment,” the man said. “It was protection. Your mother defied the family. But you? You were his last hope.”

“…Why now?”

The man reached into a briefcase and handed over a black folder. Inside was a photo of an old man in a hospital bed, holding a pen with a trembling hand. Beside him was a will. The signature read: Elias Carter. Jace’s blood turned to ice. “This isn’t real,” he whispered.

“It’s very real,” the man said. “You are now worth 142 billion dollars.”

The plane dropped altitude slightly. “We’ll arrive at the estate in ten minutes. Your legal team awaits. Along with a press release set to go public at dawn.”

“What if I say no?” Jace asked. The man didn’t answer. Because no one says no to a legacy like this. They landed in a city Jace didn’t recognize, maybe Switzerland? France? Everything felt unreal. As the car drove up a mountainside to a fortress of glass and stone, a single thought looped in his mind: This can't be happening.

But it was. Inside the estate, lawyers handed him files. Biometric scans. Passwords to vaults. Access to control seats on corporate boards across the globe. All of it, his, And just as the reality began to settle in, someone entered the room.

A woman. Dressed in a long, dark coat. Face hidden beneath a wide-brimmed hat. The security guards flinched at her presence, She walked up to Jace and placed a small, obsidian box on the table “He left you this,” she said. “And a warning.”

Jace opened the box. Inside was a pocket watch old, heavy, engraved with the family crest and a handwritten note. “To my grandson: They’ll try to kill you before the week ends. Trust no one with my name. Even blood will betray you.”   Elias Carter

Before Jace could speak, the woman vanished, The room went dead silent Jace gripped the note, pulse thundering. He wasn’t just rich. He was being hunted. As Jace stared at the pocket watch, it clicked open by itself. Inside was a small red light, blinking. Flashing. Beeping.

He looked up just in time to see the chandelier above him tremble… and the entire estate plunged into darkness, A voice echoed from the hallway. “You shouldn’t have come here, Carter.”