2026-05-24 22:17:56Tyler’s eyes widened like he had seen a ghost, or something otherworldly and in my mind, i knew it was because of the card, my vlothes may lie but the presence of the card doesn't, or so I thought.
Suddenly, he burst out laughing, not the nervours kind of laughter, but real, the kind that instantly makes everybody around uncomfortable Even the two girls beside him looked confused.
“What?” I frowned.
Tyler pointed directly at the black card on the table while trying to control his laughter.
“No damm way…” His eyes slowly moved toward Abby, and then back to me.
“You’re serious?” he asked, and I could already tell I was missing something. “That card is fake.”
The silence that followed after his statement was deafening, and the words hit me harder than expected.
“What?”
The girls beside him immediately relaxed after hearing that, one even scoffed loudly.
“Oh my God,” she laughed. “I almost got scared.”
Tyler smirked proudly again after seeing my expression. “You really thought you could fool people with a copied black card?”
Copied? I slowly looked toward Abby and she could tell that I was uncomfortable, in fact I was starttng to doubt the genuineness of the card myself. Tyler noticed my silence and became even more confident.
“You know what’s funny?” he continued loudly enough for nearby guests to hear. “People like you always do this. Fake watches. Fake lifestyles. Fake confidence.” He looked around dramatically before laughing again. “Now fake billionaire cards too?”
Some nearby guests started whispering immediately, and that annoyed me. Again, i was starting to think, what if this entire thing was some elaborate scam? What if the money disappears tomorrow? What if Abby was insane?
My thoughts were interrupted when Tyler suddenly pulled out his own card confidently, a golden one.
“I’m an actual Imperial Crown member,” he declared proudly. “Not some homeless dude pretending to be rich.” as these words left his mouth, the girls beside him looked impressed instantly. Of course they did, nothing but materialistics desires would make two girls follow one man in the name of love.
Abby finally placed her wine glass down softly and she spoke for the first time since Tyler arrived. “You talk too much.”
Tyler smirked. “And you brought the wrong toy into the wrong building.”
“Toy?” Abby tilted her head slightly.
Tyler pointed at me dismissively. “Him.”
“You know what?” he said suddenly. “Let’s make this simple.” he turned toward the hotel manager. “Run his card.”
The entire dining floor that had been quite the whole time became even quieter, because I could now hear my heartbeat. Don't get me wrong it took a while to get used to all of this if we are being honest.
“What’s wrong?” he asked me. “Scared the fake card might explode?”
The truth is, despite all the money notifications, I had never actually used the black card yet, but Abby looked completely unbothered so I pancked a little less.
“Or maybe…” his smile widened cruelly as he continued, “…you’re scared there’s actually nothing inside the account.”
The manager walked up to me and hesitated nervously.
“Sir…”
“Run it,” Tyler repeated arrogantly. “Unless Imperial Crown now protects scammers.”
At this point, every eye was on me, the poor-looking guy sitting in the presidential lounge with a fake card, maybe. The tension became suffocating, and somehow I realized that this moment mattered. Because if the card failed, everything would collapse, the confidence, the money, the power, all of it.
I slowly picked up the black card, and it suddenly felt heavier in my hand.
“Relax.” Abby leaned toward me slightly and whispered
“Well?” I looked directly into his eyes, then handed the card to the manager who carefully accepted it like he was touching something dangerous and then walked toward the payment terminal nearby.
I swallowed hard unconsciously. Why was I nervous even thought I literally saw the account balance myself. The fear still crawled inside me and after this experience I learnt that it was because poor people are trained to expect disappointment.
The manager inserted the card. One second passed, then two seconds and three but nothing happened. So Tyler laughed immediately.
“Oh my God…” he shook his head mockingly. “This is embarrassing.” the girls beside him even giggled loudly.
My chest tightened slightly as my eyes shifted to Abby, because if any of this goes wrong, I was sure to blame her fro bringing me here.
Suddenly, the terminal screen changed, and the manager’s expression froze completely like he had just seen something impossible.
Tyler’s laughter slowly faded.
“…What?” he asked.
The manager looked down at the terminal again,then at the card and finally, at me.
Tyler frowned. “What does it say?”
The manager opened his mouth, but no words came out initially.
Then finally hr replied, “Unlimited authorization…”
Tyler blinked twice. “What the hell does that mean?” he demanded.
The manager swallowed hard. “It means…” he looked at me again nervously, “…there is no spending limit attached to this account.”
The entire dining floor erupted into whispers instantly, one of the girls beside Tyler literally stepped backward, and Tyler himself looked confused now.
“No,” he said immediately. “That’s impossible.”
The manager nodded weakly. “I’ve only heard about accounts like this…”
Tyler grabbed the payment machine aggressively. “Let me see.”
The moment he looked at the screen, his face lost color. And that felt amazing because for the first time since meeting him, Tyler looked small. The arrogant confidence disappeared instantly and his eyes slowly lifted toward me again.
This time, the look in Tyler’s eyes changed completely, the arrogance was still there… but weaker now. Like his brain was struggling to connect the broke guy he mocked earlier to the black card in front of him.
Abby leaned back lazily in her chair, clearly entertained by the whole thing, then she looked at Tyler and spoke casually, “You should apologize to Lawrence.”
The atmosphere shifted instantly and Tyler’s expression darkened. The girls beside him looked at each other nervously while nearby guests pretended not to stare even though every single person was listening now.
“Apologize?” he repeated slowly.
Abby raised an eyebrow. “Did I stutter?”
His jaw tightened immediately. I could see it on his face, he wanted to explode, but the problem was simple because he no longer knew who I was. And rich people are careful around uncertainty, especially the kind of uncertainty that comes with unlimited money.
Tyler looked toward the manager again as if hoping this was still some misunderstanding, but the manager lowered his head slightly instead.
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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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