2026-07-07 21:07:42Chris hadn't moved from the edge of the bed.
The phone was still in his hand, the Binance app still open, the number still sitting there with the same impossible patience it had shown since he'd first found it. He'd been staring at it for the better part of an hour, not scrolling The phone vibrated in his hand. He startled and looked at the screen. Unknown Number. His first thought was Tyler. Some new humiliation, or one of the group chat's four hundred members who had found his number somewhere and was calling to humiliate him more. He almost let it ring out. He answered. "Hello?" There was Silence. Then breathing. Then a sound of someone crying. "James?" Chris called out. There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end. "Chris." The voice was small and young. "Chris, something happened." "Talk to me. What happened? Are you hurt?" Chris asked him "No, I am okay. I am not hurt." Chris could picture him exactly, fifteen years old, sitting somewhere private at St Matthias Junior Academy the way he always found somewhere private when things got bad, a corner of the dormitory or a bathroom stall, anywhere he could have the feeling without people looking at him. Their father had been the same way. Their mother too, apparently, though Chris only knew that from photographs and the things their father had told him in the years before the accident. James had got that from both of them. "James, tell me." "Mr Coleman came to the dormitory tonight." Mr Coleman was the principal of St Matthias. "He called me to his office." James paused again. "He said they received notification from the Virell scholarship board tonight. He said your scholarship had been revoked, and because of that, the extension clause was automatically cancelled. He said I have to go home tomorrow, Chris. He said I can't come back." James said Chris closed his eyes. His fifteen-year-old brother was called to the principal's office at night and told to pack his things. James, who had never done anything to anyone, who kept his head down and his grades up and who had inherited Chris's same stubborn belief that if you worked hard enough and stayed honest enough, the world would eventually have the decency to meet you halfway. Tyler Brooks had done this too. Maybe not intentionally; maybe James was simply collateral damage. But the result was the same. "Okay." Chris opened his eyes. He was surprised by how steady his voice was. "Okay, James. Listen to me." "The scholarship, Chris. Both of us..." James sobbed "I know. Listen to me." He kept his voice even and warm and completely certain "I need you to go back to your room tonight and pack your things calmly. Get everything. Don't leave anything behind." "Where are we going to go?" James's voice was very small. "The apartment " "Come home tomorrow. Take the number 14 bus from the main junction, you have your bus pass, right?" "Yes." "Use it. Come straight here. Don't talk to anyone about what happened, don't explain anything to anyone, just come home," Chris told his brother "You promise it's going to be okay?" James asked. He was fifteen. He was allowed to ask that. Chris looked across the small room at the cracked plaster on the far wall, the backpack by the door with everything he owned stuffed inside it, then at the phone in his hand with the Binance app still running in the background, the number still sitting there with its impossible patience. "I promise," he said. "I am going to go back to school, James. Both of us are going back to school. I need you to trust me." Another silence. "Okay," James said quietly. "Get some sleep. I will see you tomorrow." He stayed on the line until he heard James's breathing settle, until the call ended with a soft click. …. Their mother had died giving birth to James. She had haemorrhaged during labour, something unexpected and fast-moving, and by the time the doctors understood what was happening, there was only enough left of her to save one of them. His father had held Chris's hand in the hospital corridor while the decision was still being made and had not cried until it was over. Chris was three years old at the time it happened. Their father had lasted fourteen more years. Then a rainy Tuesday, at an intersection, a truck driver who was drunk driving ended his life on the curb. He was seventeen. James had been fourteen. The apartment was the last resort their father had owned, a single room in a building that was mostly occupied by people who were also using it as a last resort. Chris had deferred his grief and enrolled James in St Matthias on the scholarship extension and gone to Virell Academy and told himself he was building something. For James as much as for himself. And Tyler Brooks had taken four weeks to dismantle all of it. He sat back down on the bed. He looked at the phone. He opened Binance again. The number was still there. Two million Bitcoin. No owner. No name. No history. He thought about James packing his dormitory bag tonight. He thought about the rent ending in three weeks. He thought about sixty dollars and a portable stove that worked twice a week. And then he thought about what four hundred billion dollars actually meant. He could pay rent for a century. He could pay for James's school. His own school. Any school. Every school. He stopped. A thought had arrived. He could pay for Virell. Not the fees. Not the enrollment. Something larger than that. Something Tyler Brooks and his father and Principal Hargrove and the entire scholarship board had never once considered possible from a boy with sixty dollars and a backpack, because it had never once been possible before tonight. He sat very still with that thought for a long time. His phone screen dimmed. He tapped it awake. The number looked back at him. He was going back to Virell Academy. He had decided that in the same breath he had told James to trust him, and he had meant it the same way he always meant things But he was not going back the same way he had left.He was going back as something Tyler Brooks had never encountered in his entire cushioned, insulated, consequence-free life.
He was going back as the most dangerous thing in any room. He stood up, set the phone face-down on the table, and began to think
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
11. The Anonymous Benefactor
Chris walked into classroom 9B as if he had never left it.Same desk by the third window, the one with the slight wobble on the left leg that everyone else avoided. Same view of the courtyard below. He pulled out the chair, set his satchel down, and sat.A few students who had followed from the corridor drifted in behind him, pretending to find their own seats while their eyes stayed fixed on him. He could feel them staring intently at him.He opened his notebook.He uncapped his pen.He waited for class to begin, and his face gave nothing away, and inside his chest his heart was running slightly faster than normal.…………………………….Back in the corridor, the crowd had begun to move awayStudents left away in twos and threes, heading toward their own classrooms, their whispered conversations trailing behind them.Principal Hargrove watched them go.He stood for a moment in the emptying corridor with his hands still clasped behind his back, looking at nothing in particular, the expression
10.Legal Return
The security officer who arrived first was a heavyset man named Mr Danladi, someone Chris recognised from two years of walking past the gate booth every morning. He moved through the crowd with the brisk, practised authority of someone trained to de-escalate, his radio crackling once against his shoulder before he silenced it."Alright, alright." He raised both hands, scanning the scene Tyler's grip still locked on Chris's shoulder, the crowd now a solid ring three and four students deep, phones everywhere. "What's going on here?""This is what is going on." Tyler released Chris's shoulder only to gesture at him with the same hand, like he was presenting evidence. "This student was expelled three days ago. For theft. He is trespassing on campus property right now, and I want him removed. Immediately."Mr Danladi looked at Chris. Then back at Tyler."Mr Brooks", he said, "I understand your concern, but I can't remove this student."The words landed in the corridorTyler blinked. "
9. Back Through the Gates
Three days inThe iron gate of Virell Academy looked exactly the same as it had three nights ago when he was leavingChris had walked through with nothing in his hands but a backpack and a letter of dismissal. He stood outside for a few seconds with a grin on his faceHe took a deep breath and murmured.“CHRIS IS BACK VIRELL, Y’ALL SHOULD WATCH OUT."He then started walking again through the gates and into the school.He was wearing the new uniformHe had gotten a haircut two days ago, a clean fade that a barber three streets from his old apartment He and James had moved into a two-bedroom that week, paid for in cashNo one stopped him.That fact alone sat strangely in his chest. Three nights ago this gate had been the wall between him and everything. This morning it opened for him like it always should have.He crossed the courtyardThe birthday lights were gone now. Ordinary morning light fell across ordinary stone, students moving toward their first classes in twos and threes.Hea
8.Surprise!!
Chris sat back down at the table and opened his browser.He knew exactly where to start.St. Augustine's Preparatory Academy had a website that looked the way the school looked in person He had visited the page once before, months ago, after James had pressed his face against the fence that Saturday.He opened it now and went through it properly this time. The academic programmes. The extracurriculars. The boarding facilities, the library, and the science block that had apparently just been renovated. He clicked through to admissions.The fee structure was listed clearly. Annual tuition: twenty-two thousand dollars. Boarding: nine thousand. Uniforms, materials, and activity levy: six thousand. Total for one full academic year, all inclusive: thirty-seven thousand dollars.Thirty-seven thousand dollars against fifty-one thousand in his account.He didn't hesitate.He filled the enrollment form and submitted it A payment portal loaded. The total sat at the top of the page.$37,000.00
7.Real
The morning light pierced the room slowlyChris lay on the bed fully dressed, shoes still onHis phone was buzzing.He reached for it without fully opening his eyes. He tapped the notification.It was from Binance.He opened his eyes.“MARKET ALERT: BTC has reached a new all-time high. Current price: $255,000.00 per coin. Your portfolio has been updated," the message readHe sat up.He read it again.His brain, still assembling itself from sleep, did the arithmetic slowly and then all at onceLast night: $200,000 per coin. Two million coins. Four hundred billion dollars.This morning: $255,000 per coin. Two million coins.He opened the app.Total Portfolio Value: $510,000,000,000.00Five hundred and ten billion dollars.He had made one hundred and ten billion dollars overnight. Without doing anything. Without moving a single coin, making a single decision, lifting a single finger.He sat on the edge of the bed in the morning light and stared at the number on the screen.He set the pho
6.The Devil Smiles
The room was quiet.Not peacefulChris sat at the small table with his phone face up in front of him, the Binance app open, and for the first time since he had walked through Virell's iron gate, he let himself breathe slowly and fully and without the weight of immediate crisis pressing on his chest. The crisis was still there. The rent ending in three weeks was still there. James's packing a dormitory bag tonight was still there.But underneath all of it, steady and enormous and growing clearer by the minute, was the number.He took out the one piece of paper he had kept from his backpack and he uncapped a pen.He wrote three things at the top.James, School. Virell.He stared at the list. Then he started from the beginningJames first.That was non-negotiable. Whatever else happened, whatever shape this revenge took or didn't take, James was not spending another day with his education in someone else's hands. Chris thought about St Augustine's Preparatory, the best junior academy i
You may also like
WAR GOD'S REVENGE
Ardy-sensei98.2K viewsRevenge Of The Rejected Heir
Beautypete98.2K viewsThe Charismatic Charlie Wade
Lord Leaf64.9M viewsThe Rise of the Son-in-law After Divorce
Enigma Stone312.4K viewsTHE UNSTOPPABLE JASON SALFORD
POPSICLE102 viewsThe Medical Doctor's mother died in his arms
Allahamdullilah books135 viewsMy Cheating Wife Shocked: I'm the octomillionaire Heir
AL Farwa152 viewsThe Urban God Of Riverdale
DramaKing53 views