Rewriting My Billions: Boss of the Hidden realm

Chapter 2: The Minimum-wage Vampire

I stepped out of the apartment building and took a deep breath of the damp, smoggy morning air. 

The city was loud, dirty, and beautifully alive. Yellow cabs blared their horns. A guy on the corner was selling bootleg DVDs out of a duffel bag. My sneakers splashed in a shallow puddle reflecting the neon sign of a corner pharmacy. 

I paused, looking at that flickering green pharmacy cross. 

A heavy, familiar knot tightened in my chest. In my past life, that pharmacy was where I spent my last dime trying to keep my mother alive. 

My parents were good people. Too good. My dad worked sixty hours a week at a logistics warehouse, and my mom was a kindergarten teacher. They played by the rules. They paid their taxes. And when my mom got sick, the corporate machine ground them into dust. 

A conglomerate called the Sterling Group bought out my dad’s warehouse, fired everyone with a pension, and canceled their health insurance overnight. My parents lost the house to pay for treatments. My mom died in a sterile, cheap hospital room, and my dad’s heart gave out from the stress a year later. 

They left me a cardboard box of photos and a mountain of medical debt. 

That was the exact moment the 22-year-old Julian Thorne decided that playing by the rules was for suckers. I became a shark. I swore I would get so rich that nobody could ever step on me again. I succeeded, but I lost my soul in the process. 

I turned away from the pharmacy window, sliding my hands into my cheap jacket pockets. My fingers brushed against my remaining twelve dollars. 

Not this time, I thought, my jaw setting.

I’m going to build an empire that could crush the Sterling Group with one hand. But I’m going to do it without turning into a monster.

*DING.*

[Karma Debt stable at 0%.]

[Reminder: Target Gideon Cross is located 0.4 miles away. Target is currently taking blunt-force trauma.]

Right. The vampire. 

I stopped at a bodega on the corner. I slapped four dollars on the counter and walked out with two steaming cups of black coffee. If I was going to interview a five-hundred-year-old supernatural being, it was polite to bring beverages. 

Ten minutes later, I turned down a narrow, trash-filled alley behind a crumbling pawn shop. 

The sound of meat getting punched echoed off the brick walls. 

"Where’s the money, trench coat?!" a gruff voice barked. 

I stopped in the shadows and took a sip of my coffee. Three massive guys in leather jackets were surrounding a man curled up on the wet asphalt. The thugs looked like they ate raw protein powder for breakfast. 

The guy on the ground looked pathetic. He was wearing a thrift-store trench coat that was three sizes too big, and his messy black hair covered his face. One of the thugs kicked him hard in the ribs. 

*Crack.* 

The guy on the ground didn't even groan. He just let out a long, deeply annoyed sigh. 

I focused my eyes. The System’s blue holographic screen flickered to life, hovering over the thugs. 

[Target: Thug 1, 2, and 3]

[Status: F-Tier Muscle]

[Threat Level: Irrelevant]

Then, I looked at the guy in the dirt. 

[Target: Gideon Cross]

[Species: Vampire (Age: 482)]

[Hidden Potential: SSS-Rank Combat]

[Current Status: Bored. Hungry. Highly anxious about his lack of a Social Security Number.]

I almost laughed out loud. An apex predator, a creature of the night, was letting three low-rent loan sharks kick him around a dumpster. 

"Hey," the lead thug snarled, pulling a steel baseball bat out of his jacket. "I’m not asking again, freak. You owe Mr. Sterling five grand. Pay up, or I’m breaking your kneecaps." 

Sterling. Again

My eyes went cold. Richard Sterling. The spoiled, arrogant son of the Sterling Group CEO. The same family that ruined my parents was now running loan sharks in the slums. Perfect. 

I casually stepped out of the shadows. 

"Excuse me," I said, my voice echoing clearly down the alley. "You’re scuffing up my new Chief of Security."

The three thugs spun around. The leader squinted at me, tapping the baseball bat against his palm. He looked at my skinny frame, my cheap jeans, and the two cups of coffee in my hands. 

"Beat it, kid," the leader grunted. "Unless you want your jaw wired shut."

I ignored him completely. I walked right past a thug who was twice my size, treating him like a piece of furniture, and looked down at the pile of trench coat on the ground. 

"Gideon, right?" I asked casually. "You take cream or sugar? I only got black. Didn't know your preference."

Gideon slowly rolled over. He looked up at me. His skin was pale, perfectly flawless like carved marble, and his eyes were a piercing, unnatural shade of silver. 

"I prefer O-Negative," Gideon muttered, his voice smooth but exhausted. "But I'll take the coffee."

"Hey!" the lead thug roared, stepping into my space. "Are you deaf?!"

I didn't even blink. I just looked at Gideon. "Why are you letting three guys who peak at a third-grade reading level kick you in the ribs? you have SSS-Rank combat. Rip their arms off."

Gideon let out another heavy sigh. He sat up in the dirt, wiping a smudge of grime off his cheek. 

"If I rip their arms off, they bleed to death," Gideon said, sounding like a tired accountant. "If they die, the cops come. If the cops come, they fingerprint me. Do you know what happens when you don't have fingerprints on file?"

"You go to jail?" I guessed.

"Worse," Gideon shuddered. "The IRS gets involved. I don't have a Social Security Number, kid. I've been dodging the federal government since 1913. Do you know what the IRS does to unregistered immortals with back-taxes? They garnish your wages for eternity. I'd rather take the bat to the knee."

I stared at him. The deadliest creature in the city was voluntarily getting beat up because he was afraid of an audit. 

It was the funniest, most pathetic thing I had ever heard. I loved him immediately. 

"Listen to me, Gideon," I said, crouching down to his eye level, completely ignoring the thugs who were now staring at us in absolute confusion. "Work for me."

"I don't work for humans," he mumbled.

"I’m not a normal human," I said, my voice dropping an octave, radiating absolute authority. "I am going to own this city. Work for me, and I will pay you double whatever you make now. Full benefits. Dental. And my legal team will fake you a flawless W-2 with a pristine credit score by Friday. You will never fear a tax collector again."

Gideon’s silver eyes widened. The dull, tired look vanished, replaced by a sharp, predatory gleam. 

"A pristine credit score?" he whispered. 

"I’ll even get you a corporate expense account," I smirked. 

Gideon stood up. He was incredibly tall, towering over me and the thugs. He carefully took the coffee cup from my hand and took a sip. 

"Hold my coffee, Boss," Gideon said quietly. 

"Are you two freaks done talking?!" the lead thug screamed, raising the baseball bat and swinging it full-force at the back of Gideon’s head. 

I didn't flinch. 

*Crack.* 

The steel bat hit Gideon’s skull. The bat bent at a ninety-degree angle. Gideon didn't even move an inch. 

The thug stared at his ruined weapon, all the blood draining from his face. 

Gideon turned around. His silver eyes flashed a brilliant, glowing crimson red. He opened his mouth, revealing two razor-sharp fangs. 

"I really hate getting dirty," Gideon sighed. 

What happened next took exactly three seconds. 

It was just a blur of motion. Gideon didn't throw punches; he just moved through them. A flick of his wrist sent the leader flying fifteen feet through the air into a dumpster with a sickening crunch. He grabbed the second thug by the collar and tossed him into the brick wall like a ragdoll. The third thug tried to run. Gideon blurred in front of him, tapped him lightly on the forehead, and the man collapsed unconscious to the pavement. 

Silence fell over the alley. 

Gideon dusted off his sleeves, frowning at a small speck of dirt on his cuff. He turned back to me, his eyes fading back to silver. He reached out and took his coffee back. 

"They’re alive," Gideon reported, taking a sip. "Just napping. No police. No audits."

*DING!*

[Quest Complete: Recruit the Shadow.]

[Reward: +10 Charisma. $5,000 Seed Money deposited into Host's pocket.]

I felt a sudden weight in my jacket pocket. I reached in and pulled out a thick stack of crisp hundred-dollar bills. The System wasn't messing around. 

"Good work, Gideon," I said, tossing him the stack of cash. "Go buy a suit that actually fits. Trench coats haven't been cool since the Matrix."

Gideon caught the money, staring at the bills in awe. "You’re serious. You’re actually hiring me."

"I don't make jokes about business," I said. 

I walked over to the unconscious leader slumped against the dumpster. I reached into his leather jacket and pulled out his flip phone. I flipped it open and checked his recent calls. 

At the very top of the list, a name was saved. *Richard Sterling.*

The corners of my mouth curled up into a dangerous smile. Richard was already trying to buy out this neighborhood using thugs and fear. He thought he was playing Monopoly. 

He didn't know I was playing God. 

"Drink your coffee, Gideon," I said, pocketing the thug's phone and turning toward the main street. "We have a meeting to crash."

"Who are we meeting, Boss?" Gideon asked, falling perfectly into step behind me. 

"An arrogant rich kid who thinks he owns the world," I replied, the billionaire confidence rolling off my tongue. "It's time someone taught him how to go bankrupt."