The tires scread against the asphalt, burning rubber stinging the back of Ryan’s throat as the heavy SUV tore away into the night.
He lay perfectly still on the cold, damp concrete. He had drifted back to consciousness sowhere during the drive, the rhythmic thrum of the tires against the road vibrating through his ribs. He hadn’t moved. He hadn’t twitched. He’d kept his breathing shallow and his muscles slack, playing dead weight until they dragged him out and dumped him.
The sound of the engine faded into the distant, ambient hum of the city.
Ryan finally reached up. His fingers were stiff, the skin around his wrists raw and throbbing from the severed zip ties. He gripped the rough burlap sack and yanked it off his head.
The sudden rush of cold air hit his sweat-drenched face. He blinked against the harsh glare of a flickering streetlamp. He was on his own block. Two hundred yards from his apartnt building.
He pushed himself up onto his knees, spitting the lingering taste of chemical solvent onto the pavent.
That was when he saw it.
Sitting on the concrete, less than three feet away, was his IRS folder.
It wasn’t tossed or scattered. It was neatly arranged, the edges perfectly squared, resting under the amber cone of the streetlamp.
A cold spike drove itself into the base of his spine. They hadn’t taken his defense. They had put it back for him.
He wasn’t certain if the gangsters themselves knew or cared what it was.
Ryan grabbed the folder, his thumb flipping through the thick stack of papers. The backdated seed round, the consulting invoices, Patricia’s ticulous accounting. Nothing was missing. Not a single page.
He closed the folder, forced himself to his feet, and walked into the dark.
---
The whiskey burned a sharp, hot path down his throat.
Ryan sat in the center of his living room, staring straight ahead at absolutely nothing. The apartnt was entirely silent, save for the low, rhythmic hum of the refrigerator. The lights were off. The only illumination ca from the streetlights bleeding through the window, cutting long, pale rectangles across the floorboards.
Over an hour had passed since he locked the deadbolt of his door. The violent, shaking adrenaline had finally drained out of his muscles, leaving behind a heavy, hollow exhaustion.
He stared at the amber liquid at the bottom of the crystal glass.
His mind was running at a frantic, bruising pace, slotting the pieces together.
The IRS audit wasn’t random. It hadn’t been an algorithm flagging his account. The n in the tailored suits – more likely the syndicate hunting for the anomaly – they had tipped off the federal governnt.
They were tracking over a thousand people across ninety-seven countries. Thousands of candidates showing bizarre, inexplicable financial histories. Expenses returning double. Money materializing out of nowhere.
They had used the IRS like a hunting dog.
They gave the feds the tip, then sat back and watched the targets squirm. If a candidate folded under the audit, if they panicked and couldn’t explain the deposits, it confird they were using the anomaly.
The vague texts. We are onto you. You’re running out of ti.
It was all designed to apply pressure in the dark. To force a mistake.
And Ryan had made one. He hadn’t panicked financially, but he had gave them Diana Lockridge scandal. He had handed them the exact leverage they needed.
For the first ti since the phone buzzed on that park bench, Ryan hit a ntal wall.
He realized he had never actually asked the realistic questions.
How was the Protocol even possible? Who coded it? Who possessed the capital and the infrastructure to seamlessly drop hundreds of thousands of dollars into his bank account without triggering international banking alarms?
How did it get to his phone? Why him?
He gripped the glass tighter.
He forced the questions down, burying them under a layer of ntal concrete. It didn’t matter right now. The origins of the System were irrelevant.
What mattered was his next course of action.
He had three months to transfer "ownership." To hand the System over willingly, in a calm state of mind.
There was an easy way out of this.
He could just settle.
Give it to them.
He took another slow sip of the whiskey. The bite of the alcohol grounded him.
He had six figures sitting in his personal checking account. He had nearly a million dollars in Rebuild Tech’s business account. If he gave up the Protocol, if he just handed the phone over to the man with the cigar, the blackmail video vanished.
He could walk away. He could build Bridge the normal way. With Diana’s backing, the company could grow. It could succeed. He could beco a small millionaire.
He would live a comfortable, wealthy life. A far better life than the miserable, boot-licking existence he had known at ridian Tech. He wouldn’t have to look over his shoulder. He wouldn’t have to worry about n with submachine guns in damp basents.
He could settle for that.
He could just –
A hot, venomous pressure exploded behind his ribs.
Ryan’s arm whipped forward. The heavy crystal glass smashed against the drywall with a violent, shattering crack.
Amber liquid sprayed across the paint. Shards of glass rained down onto the hardwood, chiming in the quiet apartnt.
A low, guttural groan of boiling anger ripped out of his throat.
"No," Ryan snarled to the empty room. "Fuck that."
His chest heaved. The sll of the hard liquor filled the air, sharp and pungent.
He wasn’t going back. He wasn’t shrinking himself down to fit into a safe, comfortable little box so that soone else could take what was his.
He wouldn’t settle. He wouldn’t compromise.
Never again.
Why be a millionaire when he could have billions?
Why own one company when he could own a thousand?
Why be just another successful entrepreneur when he could rip this entire city down to the studs and rule it? When he could be the richest, most untouchable man on the fucking planet?
He didn’t care who they sent.
The Mafia. The IRS. The FBI. They could send the fucking President of the United States if they wanted to.
It didn’t matter.
He had three months. Three months to use the Protocol to build an empire so massive, so heavily fortified, and so aggressively ard that the syndicate would choke on their own leverage.
Ryan stood up, his boots crunching over the broken glass on the floorboards. He looked out the window, staring at the glittering, indifferent skyline of Manhattan.
If they wanted what he had.
If they wanted his System, his money, or his life.
There was only one way they were going to take it.
From his cold, dead hands.
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