The Rise Of The Quintillionaire

Chapter 8

The morning sun shined brightly through the tall, clear windows of the luxury penthouse. It was a beautiful day in the city, but inside the expensive room, the air was dark, heavy, and full of panic. 

Marcus Vance paced rapidly back and forth across the soft white rug. He was still wearing the same white dress shirt from the charity gala the night before. The shirt was wrinkled and stained with dried yellow champagne. His expensive hair was messy and wild. He held his thin silver cell phone tightly against his ear. His face was bright red with anger, and he was screaming loudly into the phone. 

"What do you mean my credit lines are frozen?" Marcus yelled. His voice echoed off the high ceiling. "I am Marcus Vance! I have five hundred million dollars in assets! I am building the biggest real estate project in the downtown area! You cannot just block my credit cards!"

Lisa sat completely still on a soft gray sofa in the corner of the large room. She held a cup of hot black coffee in her hands, but she was not drinking it. Her hands were shaking too much. Every time she blinked, she saw the grand ballroom. She saw the heavy doors fly open. She saw Alex. 

She remembered the way Alex’s heavy guards picked Marcus up and threw him to the floor like a piece of garbage. She remembered the loud CRACK when Alex placed his black shoe on Marcus's solid gold watch, shattering it into pieces. Most of all, she remembered the cold, empty look in Alex's eyes. They were the eyes of a monster, not a man. 

"Sir, I am very sorry," the small, nervous voice of the banker said through the silver phone. "A new holding company bought our bank late last night. The new owners put a hard freeze on all of your personal and business accounts. We cannot do anything to help you. The computer will not let us."

"Then override the computer and fix it!" Marcus roared like a madman. "If you do not turn my money back on in five minutes, I will fire everyone in your building!"

"I cannot, sir. Your accounts are locked. Good day," the banker said, and then the line went completely dead. 

Marcus screamed in frustration. He pulled his arm back and threw the silver phone as hard as he could across the huge room. The phone hit a beautiful, expensive mirror on the wall. The mirror and the phone shattered into a hundred shiny pieces that rained down onto the marble floor. 

Lisa jumped at the loud noise. She put her coffee cup down on the small glass table. She stood up slowly. 

"Marcus, please," Lisa said softly, trying to keep her voice steady. "You need to calm down. Getting angry will not fix this."

Marcus spun around and pointed a shaking, angry finger directly at her face. "Calm down? Did you see what happened last night, Lisa? Did you see? Your dead husband came back from the grave! He walked into my party and humiliated me in front of the Mayor! He humiliated me in front of the richest men in Europe!"

"He is not my husband anymore," Lisa whispered, looking down at the floor. 

But her mind was spinning in terrifying circles. How did Alex get so much power? she thought. When they were married, Alex was just a simple firefighter. He could barely afford to buy her a nice dinner on her birthday. Now, legendary billionaires were bowing to him. Who was giving him all of this money? Was he a puppet for some angry, hidden rich man? 

Lisa felt a deep, cold fear growing in her stomach. If Alex was back, he would want revenge for the fire. He would want them to pay for locking the doors and leaving him to burn. She needed to know who was helping him. If she knew his secret, maybe she could protect herself. 

"I am going out," Lisa said quietly. She walked to the large closet and put on a simple dark coat and big black sunglasses. She wanted to hide her face. 

Marcus did not even look at her. He was already running toward his home office to find another phone. "I need to call my investors! I need to call the builders! I need money today!" he muttered to himself, grabbing his hair in panic. 

Lisa drove her expensive white sports car across the city. She drove away from the rich side of town, with its tall glass towers and clean streets. She drove toward the older, dirtier neighborhoods. She was driving to Fire Station 42. It was Alex's old firehouse. 

She remembered visiting the firehouse many times when they were married. She remembered the smell of the diesel trucks and the loud laughter of the brave men. She thought that maybe his old firefighter friends knew something. Maybe they had helped him hide after the fire. Maybe they knew the name of the rich man who was funding Alex's new life. She just wanted to ask a few simple questions. 

She turned the corner onto the familiar, narrow street. But when she looked out the front window, she slammed her foot hard on the brakes. 

The tires screeched loudly as the white car stopped in the middle of the road. Lisa took off her dark sunglasses. Her mouth opened wide in total shock. 

The old red brick firehouse was completely gone. 

Instead of the station, there was a massive, dirty construction site. Huge yellow bulldozers were driving over the broken ground. A giant metal wrecking ball swung through the air and smashed into the very last standing wall of the station. 

BOOM! 

The wall crumbled into dust. Thick clouds of gray dirt and crushed red brick filled the air. 

Lisa quickly got out of her car. She coughed as the dirty dust hit her face and ruined her expensive coat. She ran up to the tall wire fence that surrounded the busy site. 

A large, rough-looking man in a yellow hard hat and a dirty orange vest was standing near the gate. He held a thick wooden clipboard and was yelling orders at the truck drivers. 

"Hey!" Lisa shouted loudly over the roaring noise of the giant machines. "Hey! Excuse me! What are you doing? Where is Fire Station 42?"

The heavy foreman turned around and looked at her in surprise. "It is gone, lady! We started tearing it down at four o'clock this morning!"

"Four o'clock?" Lisa asked, her eyes wide with disbelief. "But the city owns this building! It is a public service! You cannot just destroy a firehouse overnight! That is illegal!"

The foreman laughed. It was a rough, tired laugh. He wiped sweat from his dirty forehead. "The city does not own this block anymore, lady. Some giant private company bought the whole street at midnight. They bought the firehouse, the bakery next door, and the parking lot. They paid the city triple what it was worth in pure cash. The Mayor signed the papers himself just a few hours ago."

Lisa felt the cold fear return, chilling her blood. "Who bought it?" she asked, her voice shaking violently. "Who has that kind of money to buy a city block in the middle of the night?"

The foreman looked down at his clipboard. He pointed a thick, dirty finger at a name printed at the very top of the paper. 

"It is a ghost corporation," the foreman said, shaking his head. "Nobody in the building business has ever heard of them before today. They just appeared out of nowhere with billions of dollars. They are called Sterling-Vanguard."

Lisa stared at the name on the paper. Sterling-Vanguard. 

Suddenly, a terrible, heavy truth dropped onto her chest like a giant stone. 

Alex did not have a rich boss. Alex was not a hired puppet for another man. If he could buy a hundred-million-dollar hotel to ruin a party, and an entire city block to erase his past, that meant only one thing. 

Alex was not being funded. He was the fund. 

He was the master of it all. He had more money than the Mayor, the banks, and Marcus combined. And he was tearing down his painful past, brick by brick, preparing to build his kingdom over their bones. 

Lisa backed away from the tall wire fence. Her legs felt completely weak, like they were made of water. She realized she was not just fighting a rich man. She was fighting a god of money. She ran back to her car, suddenly terrified for her life.