REVENGE OF JASON LUTHER

Chapter one: The beginning of the End

The rain had started as a drizzle when Jason Luther clocked in for his evening shift at QuickBite Delivery Services. By the time he strapped his third order of the day onto the back of his beaten-up motorcycle, the drizzle had become a steady downpour that soaked through his thin jacket.

Jason didn't complain. He never complained. He checked the delivery address on his phone, and his stomach dropped.

It was Silverwood Heights, the most exclusive neighborhood in the city, where houses started at twenty million dollars and went up from there. Where people like Jason only entered through service gates and weren't allowed to make eye contact with residents.

The order was for Richard Blackwell, a name that made Jason's jaw tighten. Everyone in the city knew Richard Blackwell. Real estate mogul, venture capitalist, the kind of man whose net worth had so many zeros that regular people couldn't comprehend it. Jason had seen him on magazine covers at grocery store checkouts, always photographed in designer suits with that smug smile that said he owned the world.

Jason's phone buzzed with a text from his wife, Melissa.

“Don't come home tonight. Grandmother is celebrating her birthday tonight. You're not invited.”

Jason stared at the message for a long moment, rain drumming against his helmet. Three years of marriage, and this was what it had become. He'd been so desperate to afford his mother's treatments that he'd agreed to move into the Rotterdam family mansion after the wedding, thinking it would save him rent money. Instead, they charged him fifteen hundred dollars a month to sleep in a converted storage room, and Melissa collected the rest of his paycheck as her "contribution to the household."

He made twenty-two hundred dollars a month delivering food. After rent, he had seven hundred dollars for everything else. Food, gas, his mother's medications that insurance wouldn't cover, the occasional visit to the hospital. It was never enough. It would never be enough.

His mother needed surgery. A procedure that would cost $80,000, a sum so impossibly large that Jason had stopped sleeping more than three or four hours a night. He worked doubles, triples, took every shift available. In six months, he'd saved $11,000. Eleven thousand against eighty thousand. A drop in an ocean.

Jason shook himself from his thoughts and revved the motorcycle. The delivery wouldn't make itself.

Twenty minutes after leaving the restaurant, Jason finally arrived at the towering gates of Richard Blackwell’s estate.

The place didn’t look real.

The mansion stretched across the hillside like something taken straight out of a movie about billionaires or powerful villains. Bright white lights shone across the enormous building, reflecting off glass walls and polished stone. Everything looked perfect, cold, and distant, like it belonged to another world entirely.

Jason slowed his motorcycle as he approached the entrance.

The massive security gate was already open.

They must have been expecting the delivery.

Jason rode through slowly, the quiet hum of his engine echoing faintly across the long driveway. The smooth pavement curved through rows of flawless gardens. Every hedge had been trimmed with careful precision. Sculpted trees stood along the road like silent guards watching his every move.

In the center of the courtyard stood a massive stone fountain. Water poured down several marble tiers, spilling over statues carved so perfectly they looked alive.

Jason glanced at it and swallowed.

That fountain probably cost more than his mother’s surgery.

The thought sat heavy in his chest.

He parked near a side entrance marked for deliveries and turned off the engine. The steady rain tapped against his helmet as he sat there for a moment, listening to the soft sound of water and the distant rumble of thunder rolling across the sky.

For a brief second, he wished he could stay there and delay what came next.

But reality quickly pushed the thought away.

Jason removed his helmet, and rain immediately soaked into his hair. Cold drops slid down the back of his neck as he reached for the insulated delivery bag strapped to the back of the bike.

Inside were two carefully packaged containers of premium steak from The Ivory Room.

The restaurant was famous throughout the city. It was the kind of place where wealthy businessmen celebrated billion-dollar deals and celebrities toasted anniversaries under crystal chandeliers.

Jason had only been inside once before.

And that had been just to pick up an order.

He still remembered staring at the menu in disbelief.

The cheapest appetizers started at $70.

Jason glanced down at the receipt again as he lifted the bag.

Eight hundred and forty-three dollars.

For dinner.

For two people.

A quiet breath escaped his nose.

Eight hundred and forty-three dollars.

That was more than his monthly rent.

More than three months of his mother’s medication.

More than he had managed to save after six straight weeks of grinding deliveries in rain, traffic, and endless exhaustion.

And someone here was spending that much on a single meal.

Shaking the thought away, Jason stepped into the rain and hurried toward the main entrance, holding the insulated bag tightly against his chest to keep the food dry. Water soaked through his shoes almost immediately. By the time he reached the tall glass doors, his jeans were damp and his thin jacket clung heavily to his shoulders.

He pressed the doorbell.

A soft, elegant chime echoed somewhere deep inside the enormous house.

Jason stood quietly on the polished stone porch, shifting his weight as cold water dripped from his hair and slid down the back of his neck. His shoes made faint squelching sounds against the floor.

Seconds passed.

Then he heard footsteps approaching.

The lock clicked.

The door slowly opened.

And Jason’s world stopped.

Standing in the doorway was his wife.

Melissa Rotterdam-Luther.

She stood in the doorway wearing a black silk robe that barely reached mid-thigh. Her hair, usually pulled back in a simple ponytail when she was home, cascaded over her shoulders in perfect waves. She wore makeup, the kind she only wore for special occasions, and her lips were painted deep red.

The moment she saw him, her entire expression froze.

“Jason?” she said quickly, her brows pulling together in sudden shock. There was tension in her voice, the kind someone had when they’d been caught doing something they shouldn’t. “What are you doing here?”

Jason didn’t answer.

He couldn’t.

His brain simply… stopped working.

The delivery bag suddenly felt much heavier in his hands. Slowly, his eyes drifted past Melissa’s shoulder and into the house behind her.

The living room was enormous. Floor-to-ceiling windows revealed the glowing city lights far below the hillside. Soft golden lighting filled the room, illuminating expensive furniture arranged with careful elegance.

A man’s suit jacket hung casually over the back of a chair. On the glass coffee table sat two half-empty wine glasses.

A bottle of red wine.

And two plates already waiting.

Jason’s stomach twisted painfully.

“I…” he finally forced out, his voice rough and strained as he lifted the insulated bag slightly. “I’m delivering your food.”

The shock on Melissa’s face disappeared instantly.

Her expression hardened.

“Then drop it and leave,” she said sharply, irritation filling her voice as she crossed her arms. “Right now.”

Jason blinked at her.

“Melissa…” he said slowly, disbelief shaking through his voice as he stepped slightly forward. “What is this? What are you doing here?”

“That’s none of your business,” Melissa replied coldly as she began pushing the door closed.

Jason’s hand shot forward and caught the door before it could shut. “None of my business?” he demanded, pain and anger rising in his voice. “You’re my wife!”

“In name only,” she replied sharply. Her eyes were so cold that Jason felt a deeper chill than the rain soaking his clothes.

“Did you really think this was going to last forever, Jason?” she continued with a bitter smile. “You, with your pathetic delivery job and your constant begging for money? I’m twenty-six years old. I’m not wasting my life being poor.”

Footsteps echoed from deeper inside the house.

A moment later, Richard Blackwell appeared behind her. He wore only expensive dress pants and an open white shirt, the top buttons undone. His hair was slightly messy, and his expression carried the relaxed confidence of someone who had never struggled for anything in his life.

He was everything Jason wasn’t.

Tall.

Handsome.

Powerful.

The kind of man who owned companies, made million-dollar decisions, and walked into rooms knowing everyone would listen.

Richard looked at Jason the same way someone might look at a bug on the floor. “Is there a problem here?” he asked calmly, sliding his arm around Melissa’s waist.

Melissa leaned comfortably against Richard as if she had been standing there all evening. Her arm looped casually through his, her manicured nails resting on his sleeve. There was not a hint of guilt in her posture.

“Babe,” she said lightly, tilting her head toward Jason as though introducing a stranger at a party, “this is Jason… my husband. The useless delivery driver I told you about.”

Richard slowly looked Jason over, his eyes moving from the soaked helmet in Jason’s hand to the mud splashed across his boots. A faint, amused smirk spread across his face.

“Oh,” Richard said with quiet amusement, folding his arms as if the situation entertained him. “So you’re the famous son-in-law of the Rotterdam family.”

Jason felt something deep in his chest crack open.

The words slipped out before he could stop them.

“You’re sleeping with my wife.”

Richard didn’t deny it.

Instead, his smirk widened.

“I’m sleeping with Melissa Blackwell,” he corrected smoothly, his voice calm and confident. “Or I will be, officially, once your little marriage is dissolved.” His gaze slowly scanned Jason from head to toe again, lingering on the soaked delivery uniform with obvious contempt. “She told me all about you. The charity-case husband. The burden she had to carry.”

He gave a soft chuckle.

“Honestly,” Richard added with a shrug, “I’m doing you a favor. Now you can stop pretending you’re worth something.”