2026-05-20 22:17:49I stared at her for a second too long, and by then the police sirens became louder. Logically speaking, I am not even sure they were really after me, what was I thinking? Well I wasn’t, so I gave in.
“Okay, fine!” I snapped before quickly entering the SUV.
The moment I shut the door, the vehicle moved smoothly away from the sidewalk just as two police cars sped past us. Again, they did not stop at the scene of the fight, but went further, and that had me questioning what they were truly after
“That was close,” I muttered.
The woman beside me scoffed softly. “No it wasn’t.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means if you had gotten into the car sooner there will be nothing to panic about. The cops were after me by the way.” She crossed her legs calmly as thought she hadn’t just said that. “I just broke of an engagement with the son of the prime minister to be here.”
My jaws dropped, “What?”
“You heard me.” She answered, “I broke his legs too, incase you are wondering what I had done that was so bad. But hey… we are both on the same team, so I know.”
“I am not on the same team with you.” I snapped but she laughed instead.
“You inherited my grandfather’s sin account so, we kind of are.”
I stayed quiet after hearing that because… I dint know ow to respond. And I had a lot of questions to ask her but also didn’t know which one to start with, so I looked away from her and started to admire the vehicles interior.
The inside of the SUV was ridiculously luxurious. Soft black leather seats, blue ceiling lights, expensive perfume lingering in the air. Meanwhile my wet clothes were probably ruining everything.
“Relax,” she said casually.
“How did I inherit this?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged, “Its either you are the long lost heir of his empire or his evil rituals landed on you by chance. And I sure hope you are the long lost heir.”
My eyes narrowed slightly. She was acting too comfortable, as if she knew that all of this was going to happen. Like how did she find me? Everything was suspicious and the more I think about it, the more confused I got.
I looked down at my phone again.
Balance Available:
$1,940,000“You keep staring at it like it’s going to disappear,” she said.
“…Wouldn’t you?”
“No,” she replied calmly. “Because unlike you, I already know the account is real.”
I turned toward her sharply. “So there really is an account?”
She smirked faintly. “Congratulations. You’re not schizophrenic.”
“That’s not funny.”
“It kinda is.”
I rubbed my bruised jaw painfully before asking the next question that had been driving me insane.
“How exactly does this thing work? Like a system… because it rewards me when I do anything bad, even when it think of doing anything bad.”
Instead of answering immediately, she pulled a small mirror from her purse and casually fixed her lipstick.
“I’m serious.” I was pissed,
“And I’m thinking.”
“Well think faster.”
Her eyes slowly moved toward me through the reflection of the mirror.
“Tell me something first,” she said. “How did your balance increase?”
I hesitated briefly. “Violence, sometimes anger and bad thoughts, apparently. I just told you.”
“And how did it feel?” the question caught me off guard.
“What?”
“The fight,” she clarified. “How did it feel hurting someone who thought he was above you?”
I could not answer because I was conflicted about how I felt about it, but deep down I know it felt good, like justice or revenge, something of that nature.
“See? That’s the problem.” She came in when I had not said anything.
“What problem?”
“The account doesn’t create monsters, Lawrence.” She finally put away the mirror. “It rewards the ones already hiding inside people, it give you the freedom to do whatever the fuck you want to do without feeling guilty about it… that is how life should be and that’s what my grandpa tried to explain but people called him blasphemous.”
A weird silence filled the SUV after that, because I was now wondering wether I had gotten myself into some kind of demonic convenant or if I had always been a part of it. It also brought to my notice that my conscience seemed to have flown away after I got the first credit alert. Again, I looked outside the window trying to process a lot, but then my stomach suddenly growled loudly.
“…Seriously?” She looked at me.
“I lost my job today,” I muttered.
“And?”
“And I haven’t eaten.”
She stared at me for a second before suddenly laughing. “Oh my God,” she said while shaking her head. “You really are at the beginning stage.”
“What beginning stage?”
“You still think like a poor person.” That statement annoyed me instantly, mostly because I didn’t really understand what she meant.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Instead of answering, she suddenly tapped something on the tablet built into the seat beside her and the SUV slowly stopped in front of a gigantic luxury building glowing against the rainy night. You won’t believe I just realized that the SUV was driving by itself the entire time, damm I was not thinking.
Outside, golden lights illuminated the entrance while expensive cars lined up outside. Men in suits opened doors for guests while women dressed like celebrities walked across the red carpet laughing. Even from outside, I could tell this place was disgustingly expensive, that was until i saw the sign post.
“The Imperial Crown…” I muttered, rich influencers, celebrities, athletes and politicians practically lived here.
“Come on.” The woman unbuckled her seatbelt calmly
I blinked. “What?”
“You’re hungry right?”
I looked down at my soaked hoodie and bruised knuckles and then back at the hotel. “…I can’t go in there looking like this.”
The woman stared at me blankly and laughed again.
“Lawrence,” she said slowly. “You have nearly two million dollars.”
“…So?”
“So why are you still behaving like a homeless person?” She was savage, and I could clearly see how she broke the leg of the prime minsters son without a care in the world.
A few seconds later, I stood awkwardly beneath the massive golden entrance of the Imperial Crown Hotel while rain drizzled lightly around us. People walking by glanced at my clothes with obvious disgust, a man in a suit even frowned at me like I was about to ask him for change.
The old me would have lowered his head immediately, but I deliberately kept my head high.
“Good,” she murmured softly beside me. “You’re learning.”
Before I could ask what she meant, two hotel security guards suddenly approached us, and just like I expected, they walked directly toward me.
“Sir,” one of them said coldly, “this entrance is for hotel guests only.”
I turned to my right, and guess what? The woman beside me looked completely unbothered. Nearby guests had already started staring, some were whispering and a couple even laughed quietly.
The security guard looked me up and down again “You’ll have to leave.”
I slowly reached into my pocket, but the guard sighed impatiently.
“I said…” Before he could finish speaking, I pulled out my card.
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33. Messed Up Visit
The car went faster than I had ever experienced a car go on a city street. Conrad drove with both hands on the wheel and an expression I had never seen on him before, something stripped down to pure function, every ounce of his usual contained calm redirected entirely into the mechanics of getting from one place to another place as quickly as physics allowed.Abby had her phone against her ear, calling someone, her voice low and fast. I sat with my own phone still connected to the unknown caller."Are they hurting him?" I said into it. My voice did not sound like my voice. "Tell me what you know. Right now."A pause."We do not have eyes on the location," the voice said. "We have the phone call Hargreaves made. We know the call went to a number associated with a private security contractor he has used before. We do not know what instructions were given." A pause. "I am telling you this because you need to move, not because I have answers.""Why call me at all if you do not have answer
32. Messed Up Move
The session ended at eleven thirty-seven in the morning, and by the time I walked out into the estate grounds, the Sunday sky had gone from the grey of early morning to something clearer. Not warm exactly, but bright in the way that early autumn sometimes manages, the kind of light that does not promise anything but is pleasant to stand in regardless.I stood on the stone steps for a while. Conrad came and stood beside me without speaking. That was one of the things about Conrad.After a few minutes I said, "It is not over.""No," he said."Hargreaves will fight the review.""He will fight every stage of the review," Conrad agreed. "He has lawyers who have spent two decades protecting this family's business. He will use them to protect himself. The review will take months. Possibly longer." He paused. "But he is out of the council. He cannot act from the inside anymore.""He can still act from the outside," I said."Yes," Conrad said. "He can."I thought about the unknown caller. Abou
31. Messed Up Session 2
The session began at eight o'clock exactly. Nine people around the table. The same formation as Friday, the same faces, the same careful distribution of stillness and attention. But the quality of the room was different. An emergency session carries weight that a scheduled one does not. Everyone present had rearranged their Sunday morning for this, and that rearrangement had a cost they were each aware of.Hargreaves sat in his usual position. Fourth from the right. Hands folded. Celeste sat directly opposite me, as before. On the table in front of her was a document folder that was thicker than the one she had brought on Friday.Edmund Pryce opened the session."This emergency convening has been called under Article Fourteen of the founding charter," he said. "A single council member has presented evidence of a direct threat to the network's integrity. The full council is present. The blood heir is present. We proceed." He looked at Celeste. "You called the session. You have the floo
30. Messed Up Session 1
There was no real decision made about it. We simply did not sleep. Conrad made more coffee at two in the morning and then again at four, and between those two coffees we sat in Vera's back room and prepared everything that needed to be prepared for a council session that was now six hours away.Vera had a printer. We used it.Every document was printed in triplicate. The financial routing records. The pharmaceutical contract. Ashford's forensic accountant verification. Abby's independent documentation with its separate provenance chain fully annotated. And Elias's sealed letter for the record, which I chose not to open, because it was addressed to the council and I intended the council to be the ones who heard it first.Ashford arrived at five with his sister's car and a face that looked like he had managed slightly more sleep than the rest of us, which was still not much. He sat down and looked at the stack of printed documents and did not say anything for a moment.Then he said: "Th
29. Messed Up Correction
The back room of Vera's bookshop held the silence the way old buildings hold cold. Completely. Evenly. Without apology. I had the piece of paper in my hand and I was looking at Conrad and Conrad was looking at me and between us was everything the last five days had been built on, which was apparently not the foundation either of us had believed it to be.Abby read the paper over my shoulder. I heard her breath change."Conrad," I said."Yes," he said.Just yes. Not a denial. Not a deflection. Just the single word of a man who has decided that the moment for managing information has passed.I set the paper down on the table. "Elias did not die of natural causes," I said."No," Conrad said."You knew this.""Yes.""How long?"Conrad looked at the table briefly. Then back at me. "Since three days before he died," he said.The room was absolutely still. "He told you," I said."He told me," Conrad said. "He had been ill for some time. The illness was real. But the progression was being man
28. Messed Up Conrad?
They came at eleven forty-seven that night. I know the exact time because I had not slept and the clock on the nightstand was the thing I had been staring at for the last forty minutes, watching it move toward midnight because tomorrow, everything that needs to happen can happen.The door simply opened and Conrad was there, and the expression on his face was not the usual contained calm. It was still controlled but the effort required to keep it controlled was visible."Get dressed," he said. "Now. Quietly."I dressed in the dark, out of habit or instinct, pulled on the jacket with the documents still in the inside pocket, checked the black card was where I had left it, and was at my door in ninety seconds. Abby was already in the corridor. She had her bag over one shoulder and her phone in her hand and was looking toward the front door with a focused smile."How many?" I asked quietly."Two confirmed outside," Conrad said from the living room. He was at the window, standing to one si
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