My Ex-Convict Beggar Husband Is Now a Trillionaire

CHAPTER 2

Adrian was still on the floor when he looked up at the nurse with blood on his lip from where he had bitten it on the way down.

"You don't understand. My wife arranged everything. She promised to pay all the bills while I was gone. There has to be a record. Check the system, please."

The nurse folded her arms and tilted her head like she was watching a dog do a trick that was not impressive.

"Your wife?" She let out a short laugh. "Let me tell you something, sweetheart. Not a single cent has been paid to this hospital in over a year. Not one. Your mother has been lying in that bed eating our food and using our medicine out of pure charity because the old doctor felt sorry for her."

Adrian's stomach dropped. He shook his head slowly, like the motion itself could make the words untrue.

"That's not possible. She promised me. She looked me in the eye and promised."

"Well, she lied." The nurse shrugged like it was not her problem. "And now charity is over. We are not running a shelter for stray dogs and their puppies."

Adrian pulled himself up off the floor, his legs shaking under him. He grabbed his phone and dialed Chloe's number. It rang once. Twice. Three times. Then someone picked up, but the voice on the other end was not hers.

"Well, well. If it isn't the jailbird."

Adrian's blood went cold. He knew that voice. He had spent three years in a cell because of that voice.

"Julian. Where is Chloe?"

"Chloe is in the shower right now." Julian's tone was slow and lazy, the kind of voice a man uses when he is lying on silk sheets and the whole world belongs to him. "We had quite the celebration after I proposed. You saw the pictures, didn't you? She looked beautiful on her knees, crying with joy. You should have seen how happy she was, Adrian. Truly."

Adrian's hand squeezed the phone so tight his knuckles turned white. The lobby noise faded. Everything faded except Julian's voice dripping into his ear like poison.

"I need to talk to her. She was supposed to pay my mother's medical bills. They are throwing my mother out of the hospital right now."

"Oh, that." Julian let out a bored sigh. "Yeah, about that. Why would we waste good money on a woman who is already halfway in the ground? Your mother is a bottom feeder, Adrian. Just like you. Bottom feeders don't deserve expensive hospital beds."

"You gave me your word. Both of you. That was the deal."

"The deal?" Julian laughed, and it was the ugliest sound Adrian had ever heard. "The deal was that you were stupid enough to go to prison for me, and I was smart enough to let you. There is no deal anymore. Chloe belongs to me now. Her money belongs to me. Her future belongs to me. Everything she has, everything she is, it's all mine."

Adrian's vision blurred. Not from tears. From something hotter, something that burned behind his eyes and crawled down his spine.

"You can't do this."

"I already did." Julian's voice dropped lower, quieter, like he was sharing a secret. "You want my advice? Take your sick old mother, find a nice corner on the street, put a cup in front of you, and start begging. That is where dogs like you belong. On the street. With a cup."

The line went dead.

Adrian stood there with the phone still pressed to his ear, listening to silence. Behind him, his mother coughed, a wet broken sound that echoed through the lobby.

He turned back to the nurse, and whatever was left of his pride, he swallowed it whole.

"Please. Give me a few days. Just a few days and I will have the money. I will pay everything. Every single cent. Just don't throw her out on the street. She will die out there."

The nurse looked at him the way people look at something they are about to step over on the sidewalk.

"A few days?" She put her hand on his chest and shoved him backward. "You don't have a few hours. Get out of my lobby before I call security and have them drag both of you out by your collars like the mutts you are."

Adrian stumbled but did not fall this time. His back hit the wall and he stayed there, breathing hard, his ribs pressing against his skin with every breath. He had nothing. No money, no help, no way out.

Then the television mounted on the lobby wall caught his eye. A breaking news banner was running across the bottom of the screen, and the volume was loud enough for the whole floor to hear.

"Breaking news this morning. Skyward Technology, the startup that was widely dismissed as a scam just one year ago, has just unveiled a groundbreaking AI technology that experts are calling a decade ahead of its time. The company's market valuation has exploded past one hundred billion dollars overnight."

A few people in the lobby stopped to watch. Even the nurse turned her head toward the screen.

The anchor continued, her voice sharp with excitement. "What makes this story even more remarkable is the ownership structure. Three years ago, when Skyward was struggling to survive, they offered eighty percent of their equity through crowdfunding. After two years with no results, nearly every investor pulled out. But one single shareholder held on. That one person now owns eighty percent of a hundred billion dollar company. The question on everyone's mind tonight is simple. Who is this mystery billionaire?"

The lobby buzzed with whispers. Someone near the vending machine whistled low and shook their head.

Adrian felt something strange in his chest. A memory. Faint, almost forgotten. Three years ago, before the trial, before the prison, before everything fell apart, he had put money into a small tech startup that nobody believed in. It was cheap. It was desperate. Just like him.

His fingers trembled as he opened the stock trading app on his phone. It had not been touched in three years. The loading screen spun for what felt like forever.

Then the numbers appeared.

Skyward Technology. Ownership stake: 80%. Current value: $87,900,000,000.

Adrian blinked. He read it again. Then again. His mouth opened but nothing came out. He had been locked in a cell for three years, eating cold food off metal trays, sleeping on a mattress thinner than cardboard. He never had the chance to sell. He never even knew.

He stared at the screen, and the number stared back at him.