The Useless Son-in-law Who Became A Crypto Genius

Hire A Team

He typed out the instructions. Drop location. Pickup location. Timeline. Payment details.

[Payment upon completion. Crypto. Untraceable. Don't fuck this up.]

Vincent: [We won't.]

Neo hoped not. He needed them competent. Needed them reliable.

Because if this test run worked—if they proved themselves—then he'd have the muscle for phase four.

The revenge phase.

–––––––––––

In her tiny apartment, Lyra stared at her phone.

Douglas Carver's threat echoed in her head. "Our lawyers will be in touch."

She should've been scared. Should've been backing down.

Instead, she felt energized.

'They're rattled. Which means I'm onto something.'

She pulled up her conspiracy board. Added new notes. Douglas's call. His specific language. Mark's warning about digging deeper.

'What are they hiding? It's not just insurance fraud. There's something else. Something bigger.'

Her phone buzzed. Email notification.

Subject: "Re: Bellvue Article"

Sender: Anonymous

Lyra's finger hovered over it.

'Could be spam. Could be a threat. Could be—'

She opened it.

[Ms. Chen. Your article asks the right questions. The answers are worse than you think. If you want the truth, you'll need to dig deeper into Noam Ash's life. Specifically, his finances in the months before his death. Follow the money. It goes places the Carvers don't want you to look.]

No signature. No contact info. Just that.

Lyra's chest did that thing again. Tight and loose at the same time.

'Anonymous tip. From someone who knows something. But who?'

She screenshot the email. Started a new file.

Then pulled up her laptop. Started searching for financial records.

'Follow the money. Okay. Let's see where it leads.'

–––––––––––

Neo watched his monitoring feeds. The Carvers were settling in for the night.

Mark in his room. Still searching. Still panicking.

Alina getting ready for bed. Still playing the grieving widow even when alone. Method acting at its finest.

Cassandra and Douglas in the living room. Arguing in hushed tones about something Neo couldn't quite make out.

He turned up the audio.

"—need to be more careful," Cassandra was saying.

"We are being careful. That reporter is just—"

"She's asking about the insurance. About the crypto. What if she finds—"

"She won't. There's nothing to find. We covered everything."

"Did we though? Because Mark seems nervous."

Douglas said something Neo couldn't catch. Cassandra responded. Back and forth.

Neo recorded it all.

'Keep talking. Keep worrying. Your paranoia is my weapon.'

His other monitor showed Lyra's apartment. He'd set up a camera there too—hacked her laptop's webcam. Not proud of the invasion, but desperate times.

She was typing frantically. Pulling up bank records, credit reports, anything she could access legally.

'She's tenacious. I'll give her that.'

Neo drafted another email to her. More breadcrumbs.

But not yet. Let her struggle a bit more. Let her think she's figuring it out on her own.

'The best puppets don't know they're being controlled.'

His phone buzzed. Text from the number he'd used to contact Adam.

[Contract signed. Ready to start Monday. Any other prep I should do?]

Neo typed back: [Just prepare for the biggest opportunity of your life.]

Adam: [Already am. Thank you again, sir.]

'So eager. So grateful. So oblivious.'

Neo pulled up the company structure. Looked at the org chart.

At the top: anonymous investors. Himself, hidden behind legal entities.

Below that: Adam Stone, CEO.

Below that: positions to be filled. CTO. CFO. Engineers. Designers.

A whole company. A whole empire.

Built on blood money and revenge.

'Beautiful.'

The office was dark except for the glow of his monitors. Twenty-three camera feeds from the Carver estate. Lyra's apartment. The parking garage where the thugs would make their pickup.

Neo stood at the window. City lights below. Sky dark above.

In his reflection, he barely recognized himself.

Green eyes harder than they used to be. Jawline sharper from weight loss. Expression colder.

Noam Ash had been soft. Weak. Easy to break.

Neo Ames was steel.

'They wanted me gone. Fine. But I'm taking everything when I go.'

His phone buzzed one more time.

Alert from his trading account.

Bytegold: $235.

Net worth: $28,182,820.

Twenty-eight million dollars.

From a hundred thousand.

In two weeks.

Neo's lips curved.

'This is just the beginning.'

–––––––––––

Sunday night. Two days before Adam started. Three days before the thugs' test run. Three weeks since Neo had "died."

Time was moving fast. Pieces falling into place.

But he couldn't shake the feeling something was off.

That mystery caller to Mark. The distorted voice asking if Neo was really dead.

'Who was that? What do they want?'

Neo pulled up his notes again. Tried to find patterns. Connections.

Nothing.

'Maybe I'm being paranoid. Maybe it was nothing.'

But his gut said otherwise.

Someone else was playing this game. Someone he couldn't see.

'Fine. Let them come. I've died once already. What's the worst they can do?'

Famous last words, probably.

Neo's phone rang. The burner he'd used for the thugs.

He answered. "Yes?"

Vincent's voice, tense: "We have a problem."

Neo's stomach dropped. "What kind of problem?"

"Someone's been asking about us. About the Bellvue job. Showing money. Wanting information."

'Fuck.'

"Who?"

"Don't know. Professional though. Not cops. Something else."

Neo's mind raced. "I'm not interested in what you did then, but did you tell them anything?"

"Hell no. But they know we were there. Know we were hired. They're digging."

'The mystery caller. Has to be. They're not just watching the Carvers—they're watching everyone involved.'

"Sit tight," Neo said. "Don't talk to anyone. I'll handle this."

"How?"

"Leave that to me. Is the test run still on?"

Pause. Then: "Yeah. We'll be there."

"Good. And Vincent—if anyone else approaches you, you tell me immediately. Understood?"

"Understood, sir."

The call ended.

Neo sat back. Stared at his screens.

'This is getting complicated. More players. More variables. More risk.'

But somehow—

Somehow he was smiling.

'Good. I was getting bored with just the Carvers.'

He pulled up a new document. Started building a profile for this mystery player.

Organized. Professional. Well-funded. Interested in the Bellvue job.

'Who are you? And what do you want?'

His fingers flew across the keyboard. Searching, analyzing, connecting dots.

Somewhere out there, someone was hunting.

But they'd picked the wrong prey.

Because Neo had already died once.

And ghosts?

Ghosts didn't die twice.

–––––––––––

Monday morning. Adam Stone walked into the office building. Forty-third floor. Suite 4312.

The door had a temporary sign: "Ames Digital - Coming Soon."

He unlocked it with the key that had been couriered to him yesterday. Stepped inside.

Empty office. Desk. Chair. Window overlooking the city.

But on the desk—a laptop. Top of the line. And a note.

[Welcome to Ames Digital. Your first task: hire a team. Budget attached. Make us proud. - Management]

Adam sat down. Opened the laptop. A bank account had been set up in the company's name. Balance: $500,000.

Half a million to hire a team.

His hands shook slightly as he logged in.

'This is real. This is actually real.'

He didn't know the investors. Didn't know who was really funding this.

But right now?

Right now he didn't care.

He pulled up recruitment sites. Started posting job listings.

"Ames Digital seeks talented engineers for groundbreaking crypto project. Competitive salary. Equity options. Immediate start."

Within an hour, applications started flowing in.

And forty-three floors below, in a coffee shop across the street, Neo sat with his own laptop.

Watching every move Adam made through hacked security cameras.

Watching his company take its first breath.

'Welcome to the game, Adam. Hope you're ready.'

Because ready or not—

The war was just beginning.