Supreme Authority

Chapter 6

"You sent me a dowry?" Brenda snorted. "With what? Your good looks?"

But she pulled her phone out of her apron pocket anyway and opened her banking app, still glaring at him.

Her thumb stopped.

"One..." she whispered. "One million dollars?"

She held the phone closer to her face. Then farther away. The numbers did not change.

"Danny!" she shrieked. "Danny, come here! Count the zeros! Count them!"

Danny shuffled over from the kitchen table and squinted at the screen. His eyebrows went all the way up.

"That's a lot of zeros," he said.

"It came this morning," Sophia said quietly. "From Alexander's own account, before the divorce. It's the dowry, Mom."

Brenda looked at her daughter. Then at Alexander. Then at the phone.

Her whole face changed so fast it was almost funny.

"Oh, my goodness. Alexander. My good son-in-law! Why are you standing out here in the hallway like a stranger? Come in! Come in!"

She grabbed his arm and pulled him through the door.

"Danny, don't just stand there! Get him a pillow! The good pillow! And the clean towel, the blue one!"

Danny did not move. "Twenty seconds ago you said he wasn't sleeping under your roof."

"Twenty seconds ago I didn't know he was a gentleman!" Brenda waved the phone at him. "A man who pays a proper dowry is family. Everyone knows that."

"You said over your dead body."

"Do I look dead to you?" Brenda snapped. "Pillow. Now."

Danny went to get the pillow.

The flat smelled of warm laundry from downstairs. A radiator knocked under the window. Brenda sat Alexander down at the fold-out table and poured him tea he had not asked for.

"So," she said sweetly. "Son-in-law. Is there any more where that came from?"

"No," Alexander said. "That was everything."

Her smile slipped. Then it came back.

"Well. A million is a million. First thing tomorrow, I'm going to the beauty salon. And then the mall. And then..."

"Mom," Sophia said. "That money is supposed to..."

"Supposed to what? A dowry belongs to the mother." Brenda clutched the phone to her chest. "I raised you all these years. Do you know how much that costs?"

Alexander drank his tea and said nothing.

In his first life, Brenda had never once been kind to him. Money was the only language she spoke.

That was fine. He spoke it better.

---

Sophia's room held a bed, a small desk and a lamp with a crooked shade.

She stood by the bed, holding a folded blanket against her chest.

"There's only one bed," she said.

"I'll take the floor."

"You don't have to..."

"Sophia." He took a pillow from the pile by the door. "I'm not going to do anything you don't want. Not tonight. Not ever."

She was quiet for a long moment. Then she held out the blanket.

"It's the only one. The radiator in here doesn't work very well."

"Then you keep it."

"You keep it. You're the one on the floor."

He took it. Their fingers touched, and she pulled her hand back as if it had burned her.

She turned off the lamp.

He lay on the hard floor with the bent ring in his fist. Eighty million dollars, sleeping over a laundromat.

He closed his eyes and laid out the road, the way he had once planned a war.

First, the body. Every dawn, his spirit energy, one slow breath at a time, until the thin thread became a river. Body. Then Breath. Then Core. He knew every step this time, and every mistake he had made on it.

Second, the money. The bitcoin was only a seed. He remembered every piece of news that had shaken this city: which small company would shoot up next week, which deal would double next month, which giant would crash before the winter. Weeks and months, never years. Money would buy the herbs. Money would buy the time.

Third, no regrets. Last time he had climbed alone and left everyone he loved behind. This time he would carry them with him. His parents. Sophia. All the way to the top.

On this Earth, nobody else knew the way. Once his power came back, nobody would stand above him.

And everyone who had laughed at him today would be standing outside, knocking.

Tomorrow, he would find a computer.

---

Across the city, in a private room at Ashbury General, Derek lay with his nose packed in white gauze, snoring.

Victoria sat by the window with the doctor's report on her lap. Broken nose. Bruised cheek. Two loose teeth. She took a pen from her bag and added a line at the bottom.

Severe emotional distress.

A nurse set a cup of coffee beside her. Victoria did not look up. The nurse waited, then left.

Victoria's phone buzzed. A message from her lawyer.

Ms. Cavendish, there is a problem. The house, the cars, the company shares. None of it is in Alexander Sinclair's name. Everything was transferred to Richard Sinclair. Dated three months ago. All legal.

The pen slipped out of her fingers.

She dialed Sophia's number.

---

In the dark, the phone buzzed on Sophia's desk. Sophia sat up, saw the name, and handed it down to him without a word.

"You knew," Victoria hissed. "You knew, didn't you? You moved everything to your father!"

"Good evening to you too," Alexander said.

"Don't you dare play with me! Three months ago? That's a lie and you know it! That's fraud!"

"Is it? Then tell your lawyers to be good at their job."

"I will take your father to court! I will freeze every cent he has! I'll drag that old man through every courtroom in this state until he's begging on the street!"

"He's done nothing wrong."

"Neither did you, in that hotel bed," Victoria said coldly. "Did that help you?"

Alexander's hand closed tight around the ring.

Let her try. Every page had been signed before the divorce, dated three months back, and nobody alive could prove otherwise. All her lawyers could do was make it slow, and slow would cost her money, not his.

"Goodnight, Victoria."

He hung up.

In the dark, the bed creaked. Sophia had heard every word.

"Your father," she whispered. "Is he in trouble because of me?"

"No. Because of me." He handed the phone back up to her. "And I'll fix it."

"How? You have nothing."

"I have a floor. A pillow. And a blanket." He pulled it up to his chin. "Very nice blanket."

"That's not funny."

"It's a little funny."

She did not answer. But after a moment, in the dark, he heard her try very hard not to laugh.

Across the city, Victoria stared at the dead phone. Then she dialed again. Not Sophia this time.

"Grant," she said. "I need your lawyers. All of them."