The Recycling System: From Scrap Collector to Billionaire

Chapter 4: I Want to Open a Store

Jake dropped the backpack and drove his foot squarely into the man's chest, sending him flying backward across the room.

He clenched his fist, debating whether to follow up with a few more hits.

The year their parents died, Amy had been only five, and Jake just fifteen. As the oldest and now the only guardian, he'd clawed his way through the world alone ever since, because somewhere at home there was a little sister depending on him to put food on the table and keep her in school.

Insult me all you want. Treat me like dirt, work me to the bone, I'll take every bit of it, because I still have a sister to raise. But lay one hand on her, and I will go to war with you.

The little girl he'd raised with his own two hands, the one he could never bring himself to raise his voice at, what gave anyone else the right to touch her?

Amy had always been Jake's one true weakness. If it weren't for her, he had no idea what kind of person he would have become after losing both parents at fifteen.

"You little punk, I'm going to make sure you don't walk out of here! Security! Security! We've got a thief!" the man bellowed, still clutching his gut.

Something about the man's twisted, self-righteous face made Jake's blood boil all over again, and he delivered one more kick for good measure.

The man went flying sideways into the wall and slid down, unable to get back up.

Only then did Jake register just how much stronger he felt. Could this be from that Primary Enhancement Capsule the system mentioned? He vaguely remembered something about it activating right as he'd been hit by the car, but everything had been a blur at the time. Afterward, caught up in the excitement of the system itself, he'd assumed the extra strength was just adrenaline.

The commotion drew five or six security guards running in from the hallway.

"Beat him down! He's a thief, hit first, ask questions later!" the manager shrieked from his corner.

Understanding flashed across the guards' faces as they closed in on Jake with batons raised. They didn't need convincing, they were paid to follow orders, and their boss had already branded Jake a thief. As far as they were concerned, whatever happened next was on the manager's head, not theirs. Besides, he was just some thief.

"Let's see you get out of this one," the manager sneered from the wall, watching with cold satisfaction. Five or six guards should be more than enough to put this kid in the hospital.

"Bro" Amy pressed herself close behind him.

Jake took a slow breath. There was no talking their way out of this now. The only thing that mattered was making sure Amy didn't get hurt.

"Watch your brother handle this." Jake grinned, bent low, and hoisted the solid wood sofa off the floor onto his shoulder before charging forward.

This was a desperate move, he genuinely wasn't sure he could take on five grown men alone.

The guards froze at the sight of him barreling toward them with an entire sofa on his back. None of them had ever seen anything like it, that thing had to weigh a couple hundred pounds.

Jake swung the sofa in a wide arc and slammed it into the crowd. Two guards caught the full impact and dropped, howling and clutching their legs, nothing broken, but they weren't getting up anytime soon.

Something clicked in Jake's head. He'd been underestimating himself. Tossing the sofa aside, he grabbed the water cooler standing nearby and swung it around like a club, the whoosh of air cutting sharp through the room.

The remaining guards backed off fast, that cooler still had a full tank of scalding hot water sloshing inside it.

Seizing the opening, Jake dropped the cooler and threw himself at the nearest guard, fists flying.

One punch put him down.

Riding the adrenaline, Jake grabbed the second guard and dropped him with a single blow as well. The last one bolted for the door in a panic, only to get swept off his feet by a kick from behind.

When the dust settled, Jake stood alone in the middle of the wreckage, the one man left on his feet. The guards still conscious were too rattled to say a word.

"Bro! Behind you!" Amy's voice cracked with urgency.

Jake spun instantly and threw a kick on reflex. The manager had been creeping up with an ashtray raised overhead, and the kick caught him square in the chest, launching him backward through the glass coffee table in an explosion of shattered glass.

Footsteps thundered in from the hallway. The manager scrambled off the floor and bolted for the door, shouting threats over his shoulder as he fled. "You're dead, you little punk! Just wait!"

The door swung open again, but this time, it wasn't a security guard who walked in first. It was a tall, striking woman in a fitted blazer and pencil skirt, black-rimmed glasses framing sharp eyes that swept coolly over the destroyed office.

"Miss, thank god, please help me! A thief broke in, trashed my office, beat up my security team, and attacked me!" The manager threw himself at her like she was his personal savior.

Something about the woman struck Jake as strangely familiar, though he couldn't place where he'd seen her before.

"We're not thieves!" Amy burst out. "We came to sell some jewelry, and when we said no deal, he wouldn't let us leave, he called us thieves and had his guards jump us!"

"Is that true?" The woman's eyes cut to the manager.

His face went slack, jowls trembling as he scrambled for something to say, but she cut him off before he could get a word out.

"You're done here. Don't bother coming in tomorrow." She turned and pointed calmly at Jake. "I know him. He's no thief."

Jake stood there, more baffled by the second. She looked so familiar, and apparently knew him, so why couldn't he place her?

"Miss, I've given years of loyal service to this company, even if I haven't always"

"Get him out of here." She cut him off flatly. Two guards grabbed the manager by the collar and hauled him out, and he went, meek as a scolded child.

She waved a hand and the crowd dispersed on its own. That left just three people in the wrecked office, a shaken Amy, a bewildered Jake, and the composed, radiant woman standing before them.

"Jake? You really don't recognize me?" She pulled off her glasses, a faint smile of amusement playing at her lips as she took in the disheveled state of both siblings.

"Ms.... Ms. Foster?" Jake smacked his own forehead. No wonder he hadn't placed her, the Nicole Foster standing in front of him now looked worlds apart from the woman he'd seen that morning. This morning she'd carried a lazy, half-broken sadness about her. Now she radiated the crisp, commanding confidence of a woman running the show.

"Come on, let's go to my office and you can tell me what actually happened." Nicole turned and led the way.

Once seated, Jake and Amy laid out the whole story from start to finish. Nicole listened, nodded once, then picked up the phone and made a call.

"Effective immediately, no branch of this company is to hire Manager Davis again." She hung up without waiting for a response. Manager Davis, the man Jake had just handed a beating.

Jake couldn't help but chuckle under his breath, while Amy gazed at Nicole with open admiration.

"You two got lucky, you know that?" Nicole set the jewelry down on a small scale, weighed each piece, and began tallying numbers. "Based on current market recycling rates, this comes out to roughly twenty-seven thousand dollars. Let's just round it to twenty-seven. Sound fair?"

Jake nodded so hard he nearly gave himself whiplash. Of course it sounded fair, that was more money than he'd ever expected to see in his entire life, and here it was, landing in his lap after a single day with the system.

He fought to keep a straight face in front of her, biting back the grin threatening to break through.

Beside him, Amy pressed a hand over her mouth, eyes wide with barely contained excitement, glancing back and forth between her brother and Nicole.

"So what's the plan for this money?" Nicole studied the two of them, one grown, one still a child and felt an odd, unfamiliar warmth stir in her chest, something like the ghost of family she hadn't felt in a long time.

There was something about Jake in particular. From the very first moment she'd laid eyes on him that morning, she'd sensed something different in him, like watching a sapling bent nearly flat by a storm and refusing to snap. Life had crushed him from every angle, and somehow his spine had never bent.

That was reason enough to keep asking questions.

"I've got a plan. I want to open a store!" Jake said it without a shred of hesitation.

"A store?" Nicole raised an eyebrow. She knew Jake's situation, a scrap collector who'd raised his sister alone since both parents died. Where was this coming from?

"Yeah, I'm thinking a secondhand electronics and repair shop, over on Sunrise Avenue. I've picked up a lot of appliance and phone repair knowledge over the years, mostly self-taught."

That much, at least, was true. He hadn't gone to trade school for it, but between installing air conditioners and fixing electrical equipment for cash over the years, he'd genuinely learned enough to swap out basic components himself.

Of course, the real reason he wanted a secondhand shop had everything to do with the system. With Recycle and Repair at his fingertips, he could take in broken appliances and flip them like new, without spending a dime on parts or labor.

Amy nodded along enthusiastically. In her eyes, her brother could do just about anything, well, except for that one pyramid scheme disaster. But that was ancient history now.

"Is that right..." Nicole considered it. Sunrise Avenue wasn't far from her own place, a newly developed commercial strip with a lot of fresh foot traffic, solid infrastructure. Honestly, a good pick for a first business.

"The corner unit on the west end of Sunrise used to be a phone repair shop before it closed down. Go take a look when you get a chance. If it works for you, call me. Rent runs about four thousand a year." She said it after a moment's thought.

"...Your building?" Jake asked, half laughing, half in disbelief.

"That's right, mine. Previous tenant shut down almost a month ago and it's been sitting empty. Saves me the trouble of finding a new renter." Nicole nodded.

Amy leaned in and whispered in Jake's ear. "This lady's sharp, she's about to take back the money she just gave us."

"I'll go check it out tomorrow. And thank you, seriously. If you hadn't shown up, my sister and I would've been in real trouble today." Jake finally managed to get the words out.

"Don't mention it, it was the right thing to do. Just work hard once the shop's open. I might be out of a job myself soon, I could end up relying on your rent checks to get by." Nicole's smile was warm, almost teasing. "Once your business takes off, I might just raise the rent a little."

Jake just smiled, not buying that story for a second. He happened to know Nicole's own house, the one across the street from where he lived, had sold for something like seven hundred thousand dollars last year.

Nicole moved fast. Within minutes, Jake's phone buzzed with a bank deposit notification.

"Want to grab lunch together?" Jake asked, hesitating only slightly.

Under normal circumstances, he'd never have had the nerve to ask a woman like her to dinner. But with nearly twenty-seven thousand dollars freshly landed in his account, he felt something close to confidence for the first time in years.

"Next time. I've got some things to handle this afternoon." Nicole offered a small smile.

The two of them left the building to a respectful send-off from the staff lining the lobby. Jake exhaled a long breath of relief the moment they were outside, while Amy jumped up and down, laughing, wrapping both arms around his.

"See? Your brother wasn't lying to you this time!" Jake said, grinning ear to ear.

He hadn't felt this genuinely happy in years. It was like every ounce of pressure crushing him for so long had lifted off his shoulders in a single afternoon. There was some truth to what people always said, nothing cures stress quite like an unexpected fortune.

Twenty-seven thousand dollars might be pocket change to some people. To the two of them, it was a gift from the heavens.

"You weren't lying! Bro, I want burgers!" Amy stuck out her lip, finally letting herself be a little spoiled for once.

"Let's go! Burgers, on me!" Jake waved a hand grandly.

They ate until they were stuffed and bought a small mountain of things afterward. Jake splurged harder than he ever had in his life, buying Amy two full outfits and dropping over a hundred and fifty dollars without blinking.

He wanted to keep buying, but Amy refused, practically wincing with every dollar spent, until Jake finally gave up trying to talk her into more.

They rode the bus home as the sun sank low, its last light spilling gold over the two figures, one tall, one small. Amy had already curled up against her brother's side, fast asleep, a faint dimpled smile tugging at her lips as she drifted through whatever dream had found her.