The 900 Billion Dollar Heir

Chapter One - One Button Away

“Gloria, Gloria, thank god you finally picked up.”

"My mom and I were in a car accident. My mom is trapped inside. You must use the app to unlock the doors right now!"

Duane Wordsworth’s voice broke as he fruitlessly pounded the car door with his bleeding fist one more.

His car lay overturned on the cold, hard asphalt, with oil and shattered glass strewn everywhere as thick smoke billowed from the wreckage. His mother, trapped inside, could be killed at any second if the car exploded.

After call after desperate call, finally, the line connected. 

Music and laughter spilled from the receiver. 

“Duane?”Gloria’s voice sounded dreamy and distant. “What was that? Speak clearer."

Duane gulped nervously. He quickly fought the urge to babble, forcing himself to calm down before speaking. “Okay, okay, Gloria, you have to listen to me carefully now.”

“We’ve had a crash. My mother is trapped inside and the doors won’t open from the inside. I need you to use the app to unlock the doors. Please, you just need to press the button to save my mom!”

The line went quiet. Duane could hear her breath hitch slightly.

A moment later, she suddenly sneered. "Is this your new way of crying for attention?"

"I told you I have things tonight. Stop hounding me.” She sighed, “Get a life."

Duane felt his blood run cold. "I'm not making up excuses to pester you!" He strained his eyes, desperately trying to see his mother's condition, but the thick smoke burned his eyes, making them water uncontrollably. "My mother was really in a car crash! She's bleeding, and the car could explode at any second!"

"Car crashes, explosions, death... this is how you manufacture drama to keep my attention firmly in your grip. I’m sick of your tricks."

“I'm not playing tricks. I’m telling the truth!"

"Of course you are," she scoffed impatiently. "You are good at putting on this pathetic act and everyone will buy your story."

Duane froze. In front of him, the car let out another unsettling groan, the flames leaping violently. "Duane… Don’t beg her…" His mother’s breathing was faint and ragged, her voice barely a whisper, "Leave me... just go..."

“I'm not leaving you!”

Just as Duane was about to plead again, he heard someone shouting excitedly to Gloria, "Gloria, what are you doing? Francis is waiting to drink the nuptial toast with you!"

Duane heard her laugh sweetly. "I got tied up with some trifles," she said. "I'll be right there."

Trifles?? The word hit Duane like a punch to the gut.

Then Gloria turned back to him, her voice hardening. "Did you hear that? I have someone important to attend to. I’m done playing the boring game with you. Bye."

Duane’s mind went blank, his chest tightened and he could not breathe. The next instant, he thrust his arm through the shattered windshield, shoving the phone into the burning car, right beside his mother.

"Don't hang up, Gloria! Please, just listen!" he bellowed. "Listen to the fire crackling! Listen to her moans! I am telling the truth!"

"I don’t care how you see me, but if you just open the app and look, I'll leave you alone for good. Just open it and check the car’s condition, and you'll know!"

For a moment, the line went silent. Then, Gloria’s suspicious voice drifted back: "So, as long as I open the app, you’ll stop pestering me for the night, right?"

"Yes! Please, I beg you—hurry!"

She let out a helpless sigh. “Alright, I will check it.”

Duane felt as though he could breathe again, gulping down air in ragged gasps. He clutched his arm—it had been sliced open by the glass first, and then seared by the flames.

A few seconds later, Gloria’s voice came back, slow and deliberate: "I see the car windows are damaged."

"Yes! Because they were shattered in the crash!"

"The doors are showing as compromised too."

"Yes! That’s exactly why I need you to unlock them! Do it now! Open the doors!"

Gloria's voice went icy and sharp: "Do you honestly believe I'm that stupid? I know exactly what you're doing."

Duane was stunned: "What?"

Gloria scoffed. "You damaged the car yourself, didn't you? Just so you could get your hands on my cash and jewelry inside. Duane, I never imagined you could sink this low. You actually had the nerve to ask me to help you finish the job when you hit a snag? Do you really think you're that clever?"

“No, please, that’s not……”

“Shut up!” Gloria snapped, cutting him off, "I’ll give you a lesson you’ll never forget later. Now, stop pestering me!"

The line went dead. An instant later, the car doors pulsed with a faint glow, followed by a soft, mechanical click.

Vehicle Security Mode activated. All doors locked.

Duane stared at his phone in disbelief for one frozen second before something inside him snapped. 

He looked at his mother's pale face, her chest barely rising with each breath, and made his decision.

“I won't give up on you, Mom,” he whispered. 

He crawled through the shattered window into the burning car, gripped the scorching seat, and kicked the door from the inside with all his might.

Once, twice, three times. The door groaned but held. 

“Open! Open, damn it!” His vision blurred with tears and exertion, and the searing agony in his legs and hands overwhelmed his every nerve.

Finally, moments before the car exploded, the door gave a piercing shriek of tortured metal.

Duane scrambled out and yanked open his mother's door from the outside. 

He carefully lifted her from the seat, her body limp and frighteningly light in his arms. 

The smell of gasoline was overwhelming now. 

He ran, his legs burning, his lungs screaming, until he was far enough from the wreck that he could breathe again.

He didn't stop running until he reached the hospital three blocks away.

***

The emergency room was a blur of fluorescent lights and urgent voices. 

Nurses rushed his mother away on a gurney while a doctor in blue scrubs approached him. 

Duane stood there, his clothes soaked with blood and sweat, his hands still shaking uncontrollably.

“Your mother has sustained severe internal injuries,” the doctor said, his expression grave. “The smoke inhalation and extended exposure to the heat caused significant damage to her lungs and internal organs. If she had been removed from the vehicle sooner, the injuries wouldn't have been this severe.”

The words hit Duane like a punch to the gut.

If she had been removed sooner. If Gloria had just pressed one button. If those doors had opened when they should have.

“She needs surgery immediately. The cost will be one hundred thousand dollars. Out of humanitarian concern, we will keep her stable for twenty-four hours, but after that, if there is no payment, I'm afraid we cannot continue treatment.”

The words hit Duane like a freight train. 

One hundred thousand dollars. He had maybe three hundred in his bank account. 

Gloria's family had pressured him into giving up his job to take care of her full-time, leaving him financially crippled and completely dependent on her. 

The room tilted around him and he grabbed the wall to steady himself.

“I understand,” he managed to say, though his voice sounded distant and strange to his own ears.

The doctor walked away and Duane pulled out his phone with numb fingers. He stared at Gloria's contact for a long moment. He loathed himself for having to turn to this woman now. But after years of being a live-in son-in-law, he didn't know anyone else who could come up with a hundred thousand dollars.

 He pressed the call. She answered on the fourth ring.

“What now?” Her voice was heavy with annoyance.

“I need one hundred thousand dollars. My mother needs surgery or she'll die. Please, Gloria. I know things ended badly between us but I'm begging you. I've taken care of you for years. You know me. You know I wouldn't lie about something like this.”

Gloria's laugh echoed through the phone, cold and mocking. “So the first trick didn't work and now you're just asking for money directly? One hundred thousand dollars, Duane? That's not pocket change. You're not worth that kind of money. You were never worth it. Do you really think I'm going to give you anything after that pathetic performance earlier?”

In the background, Duane heard Francis’ deep voice again, “Gloria, darling, that was incredibly generous of you to spend five hundred thousand on this party. You really know how to show people a good time.”

Duane's heart turned to ice in his chest. Five hundred thousand on a party while his mother lay dying three miles away. The cruelty of it was breathtaking.

“Gloria.” His voice was hollow now, emptied of everything except a terrible understanding. “Setting aside everything I've done for you, everything I gave up for you, my mother is dying right now. This very second. I need your help.”

There was a long pause, then Gloria sighed heavily, as if he were noth

ing more than a persistent mosquito she couldn't quite swat away.

“You're really difficult to deal with, Duane. Fine. Just come to my location.”