CHAPTER 46: CHAPTER 46

A full week had passed since the explosive confrontation with his father. The signed severance agreement, now just a file scanned and saved on Evelyn’s laptop, felt like a tombstone for a relationship that had died long ago. Paying his father five hundred dollars had been a small price for the peace it finally brought.

But that peace was fragile, and their workshop had become a fortress to protect it. Thanks to Silva’s connections, a solid steel door now replaced the old wooden one, complete with a keypad lock that glowed with a soft red light. Small, discreet cameras watched the empty street from the corners. True to his chaotic nature, Silva had set off the alarm three times in the first hour just by forgetting the code, But the System’s security task was complete, and the low, steady hum of the new equipment was a constant, comforting reminder that they were building something that could be defended.

Their new sense of safety was now replaced by a different kind of pressure: a financial one. Ace wasn’t worried about rent. His entire focus was locked on the $1,480 that Ramos owed him—his ten percent cut, which was his seed money to start building a new future.

Evelyn didn’t look up from her computer screen as she spoke. She was completely focused on a list of wholesale electronics auctions, her finger hovering over a lot of twenty broken tablets. Those tablets could be their first big refurbishment project. She took a sip from her mug, which had the words ’BOSS OF THIS COFFEE’ printed on it.

"He is not a bank, Ace," she said. "He is not going to just wire the funds to us. Men like Ramos only pay you when they have no other choice. They pay when they are cornered, publicly shamed, or when the cost of not paying becomes higher than just paying up."

""I know," Ace replied. He wasn’t looking at anything in the room. Instead, he was listening intently. The chaotic noise of the city flooded his mind—a siren wailing eight blocks away, a couple arguing four stories up, and the steady thumping of bass from a car waiting at a distant traffic light. Just a week ago, this torrent of noise would have driven him crazy.

But now, he had learned to use the System’s new filters. He applied them like a master sound engineer working a control board. He mentally turned down the high-pitched sounds and muted the irrelevant hum of traffic. He focused on the mid range frequencies, searching for one specific, rough voice. It was like trying to find a single, specific fish in a roaring river.

He was listening for Marcus.

For two days, he had been tuning in during the times Marcus was most likely to be moving money. It was an exhausting effort, like trying to find one specific fish in a raging river, but he was slowly getting better at it.

He had been doing this for two days, tuning in during the late morning hours when collections and deliveries were most likely to happen. It was mentally exhausting work that left him with a constant dull headache, but his control was getting better every day.

Then, he finally heard it. It was the low, distinctive rumble of the black SUV’s engine, a sound he knew very well. He heard the squeak of its driver’s-side window rolling down. And then, he heard the voice—a familiar, gruff, and irritated sound.

The man was at a drive-thru coffee stand a mile and a half away, ordering a large black coffee with two sugars. He also asked for the envelope from the glove box, specifying not the thick one, but the other one.

Ace’s eyes snapped open. "He’s on the move," he said. "He’s got the money."

Evelyn looked up, her eyebrows raised in genuine surprise. "You can actually hear that? You can hear him specifically?"

"I heard enough," Ace said, already grabbing his jacket from the back of his chair. The normal world outside their workshop snapped back into his focus. "He’s heading this way, probably to make a drop-off somewhere in this district. It’s time for us to go and send an invoice to our investor."

Ace had a plan. He wasn’t going to wait by the workshop door like a desperate dog begging for a scrap. Instead, he walked two blocks to a narrow alley full of potholes. This alley was a shortcut between two main streets, and any large vehicle would have to slow down to a crawl to get through it.

He leaned against the sun-warmed brick wall of a closed laundromat and pulled out his cheap phone. He pretended to scroll through it. His heart was pounding against his ribs, but he kept his face looking bored and indifferent.

Right on time, a black SUV turned into the alley. Its tires bumped over the broken asphalt, and it almost came to a complete stop to avoid a large pothole. Ace pushed himself off the wall, put his phone away, and stepped into the driver’s view. He raised his hand in a casual, friendly wave.

The SUV stopped. The passenger window slid down without a sound, revealing the scarred face of a man named Marcus. He looked both annoyed and disgusted. "What are you doing, kid? Get out of the road," he growled.

"I was just taking a call. The service is bad out here," Ace said, keeping his voice calm and relaxed. He leaned down, resting his arms on the doorframe so he was at eye level with Marcus. "I thought I would save you a trip. I know you’re a busy man. You can just give me my cut now. It saves time for both of us."

Marcus’s eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. The air inside the car seemed to get colder. "What cut?" he growled, pretending he didn’t know.

"My ten percent from the two jobs I uncovered," Ace said, his tone staying casual and matter-of-fact. "From the Gilded Cage job, Manager Kovac was skimming about ten thousand dollars a week from the boss. And from the Pier 14 South job, Leonid Petrovich was skimming an average of forty-eight hundred a week. My finder’s fee for both is one thousand, four hundred and eighty dollars. Cash is fine."

A thick silence filled the alley. Marcus stared at him, his jaw tightening. He had clearly hoped Ace would be too scared or too stupid to ever ask for the money. He had probably planned to keep it for himself. "The boss decides if you get a bonus, kid. Not you. Your real salary is not getting your knees broken."

"It sounds like I misunderstood, then," Ace said. His voice changed, losing its casual tone and becoming sharp and precise. He used audio enhancement to perfectly remember a past conversation. He could hear Ramos, saying the words clearly in his mind: "You will earn ten percent of the value of any problems you uncover and help fix. Consider it a finder’s fee."

Ace mimicked that cold, authoritative tone. "I apologize. When Mr. Ramos himself looked me in the eye and said ’ten percent, a finder’s fee,’ I thought he was a man of his word. I assumed his business ran on clear rewards, not broken knees. That was my mistake." He gave a cold smile that wasn’t friendly at all. "And I know you have the money on you. It’s in the envelope in your glove box. The one that isn’t the thick one. That one will do just fine."

The look on Marcus’s face changed in a tiny but subtle way. He was still furious, but now he was also stunned and even a little impressed against his will. The kid wasn’t begging or even demanding. He was calmly collecting a debt he was owed, and he knew exactly where the money was hidden. It was unsettling.

Marcus held his glare for a long, tense moment. Finally, he snorted and looked away. He reached over with a grunt, opened the glove box, and pulled out a white envelope. He held it without handing it over.

"You have a real smart mouth, kid," Marcus rumbled, his voice low and threatening. "That’s going to get you buried in a shallow hole one day."

"Probably," Ace agreed, his hand still held out, steady and waiting. "But today, it’s getting me paid."

Marcus hesitated for one more second, then slapped the envelope into Ace’s palm. "Don’t spend it all in one place," he said.

Ace didn’t flinch. He didn’t rip open the envelope to count the money right there, which would have shown weakness or distrust. He just nodded and tucked the envelope neatly into the inside pocket of his jacket. "It was a pleasure doing business with you, Marcus. Have a good day. Let the boss know I’m ready for the next opportunity whenever he is."

Ace gave a short, sharp nod and stepped back from the SUV. The window slid up, sealing Marcus’s angry face behind the dark glass. The engine roared as the vehicle pulled away, its tires kicking up gravel as it sped out of the alley.

He only allowed himself to relax when the SUV had vanished around the corner. Ace let out a long, shaky breath that he didn’t realize he had been holding. He leaned back against the brick wall as his legs suddenly felt weak. The rush of fear and excitement left him feeling shaky. He closed his eyes and took a moment to steady his hands. After he had calmed down, he pushed himself off the wall and walked quickly and with purpose back to his workshop, Unit B-17.

Inside, the heavy thud of the steel door closing behind him felt final and safe. He locked it and slid the deadbolt into place. Evelyn was already there, and she had given up her earlier pretense of working. She just watched him, her face a mix of anticipation and worry.

Without saying a word, Ace pulled the envelope from his jacket and tossed it onto the workbench. It landed with a solid, satisfying thump.

They both stared at it for a moment. The envelope was a monument to a ridiculous and terrifying victory.

"Well?" Evelyn finally asked, her voice barely a whisper.

Ace picked it up, slid a finger under the flap, and poured the contents onto the cleanest spot on the workbench.

Neat, brick-like stacks of cash spilled out. The stacks were mostly twenties and fifties, with a few hundred-dollar bills on the bottom. The smell of paper and ink filled the air.

Evelyn let out a low, incredulous whistle. "Holy hell. You actually did it. You walked up to a loaded gun and asked for your allowance."

"I didn’t ask," Ace corrected her. A real, wide, triumphant smile finally broke through the calm mask he had worked so hard to maintain. A genuine laugh, filled with giddy relief, escaped him. "I presented an invoice, and it was paid in full." He started gathering the money back into a single, impressive stack. "This isn’t blood money, Evelyn. This is venture capital. Ramos is our angel investor, but he is painfully unaware that he is funding the startup that will make his entire operation obsolete."

He counted out seven hundred fourty dollars and handed it to Evelyn. "This half goes into the business account." He held up the other half of the cash. "This is for parts. Buy those twenty tablets you were looking at. Buy every one of them. It is time we started building our own product line."

Evelyn took the money, and a look of fierce, excited determination spread across her face. This felt different. This was a real strategy, a future being purchased one risky confrontation at a time. "Yes, sir," she said, her tone dead serious and without a trace of joking. "CEO."

Ace picked up the burner phone that Ramos had given him from the workbench. It was silent, dark, and inactive. For now. He looked at the stack of cash that was their war chest. He looked at the fortified door that was strong enough to withstand a ram. He looked at his partner, who was already turning back to her laptop to place the order for their future.

The danger was still out there, like a shark circling just beneath the surface of the water. But for the first time, as he stood in his fortified workshop with their seed money in his pocket, it felt like they were building a bigger and better boat.