Near noon, outside the construction site in Queens.
Don Quixote drove with one hand while scrolling TikTok on his cracked phone.
“Jesus Christ, these kids today…” he muttered, shaking his head.
“What the hell happened to this country?
Does America even have a future?”
A new video popped up.
The street looked familiar — one he sometimes drove past.
The clip showed a naked Latino guy sprinting down the sidewalk, one hand covering his face while the other worked his dick.
A crowd filmed him and laughed their asses off.
“Fuck!” Don Quixote nearly jumped out of his seat.
“My fucking eyes!
How does this shit even get approved?”
…
“You actually did it.
How the hell did you do that?”
Back at the gym, most of the crowd had cleared out.
Michael stared at Levi like he’d grown a second head while Levi took his water bottle back.
“What do you mean, how?” Levi said, sliding the bottle and the tub of protein powder into his bag.
“Didn’t even get taxed.
I figured they’d take close to twenty percent.”
“No, seriously.
How?” Michael ran a hand over his head.
“When you first started you were struggling with eighty kilos.
Now you’re—”
“Maybe I’m just that strong,” Levi said with a shrug.
“Guy had a big mouth.
Figured he needed a lesson.”
Even burning one charge of Berserk on this was worth it.
He’d learned fast that Americans loved pretending they weren’t racist.
On paper it was forbidden.
In reality it was everywhere, and the lower you went on the ladder, the worse it got.
It was like some open secret everyone knew but nobody said out loud.
Levi had caught plenty of Black and white people on the subway giving him that sudden flash of hate, like he’d personally wronged them.
“I’m out,” Levi said, bumping Michael’s fist.
“Got stuff to do.”
“Yeah, me too.
Church needs me for community service.”
Levi hadn’t pegged Michael as the church type.
He headed for the subway and rode up to the Upper East Side for his shift.
Mrs.
Dolores wasn’t in.
The boutique stayed dead quiet all afternoon.
The big wooden crate he’d helped move last time had been opened.
Levi finally got a look at the “art piece.”
It was an abstract human-shaped metal sculpture, looked like it was cast in one piece.
Something felt off.
It didn’t look anywhere near three hundred kilos.
When he’d moved it, he’d heard something shifting inside.
Now it looked solid.
Mrs.
Dolores clearly wasn’t going to explain, and he knew better than to ask.
Still, the whole setup made him curious.
The store barely did any business, yet she paid part-timers in thirteen-thousand-dollar suits and didn’t seem to give a damn about profit.
Three hours flew by.
At five o’clock Levi changed back into his regular clothes and took the subway to Lyon’s pawn shop.
The second Lyon saw him, his face twisted.
“You got some fucking nerve coming back here!” he snapped.
“You lied to me, kid!”
“Did I?” Levi asked, walking up calm.
“There’s no game company!
These are just plain twenty-four-karat gold coins!” Lyon slammed one on the counter.
“No collector value at all!”
“Oh.
Is that right…”
Levi kept moving forward and activated Silver Tongue.
After the upgrade, greedy bastards like Lyon were basically guaranteed.
“Listen to me.
As Levi talked, Lyon’s anger melted into confusion, then slow understanding.
“So… because I searched in the wrong language, I couldn’t find the company?” Lyon said, looking embarrassed.
“I mean, it makes sense.
Normal people don’t mint solid gold commemorative coins…”
“Exactly.
You had me all wrong,” Levi said, nodding.
He pulled out the last sixteen coins.
“These are the final ones.
What’s your best offer?”
He was keeping one coin as a souvenir.
The rest were getting sold so he could finally afford to move out.
While he worked on Lyon, slowly convincing him the collector value had jumped again and pushing for triple the original price, his phone rang.
“Yeah?
Uncle Don Quixote,” Levi answered.
“I’m at Lyon’s shop selling some stuff… Sure.
I’ll wait out front.”
He hung up, frowning.
“Weird.
What does he want at this hour?”
“Deal!” Lyon finally caved, teeth gritted.
“Twelve hundred each.
I’ll take all of them.”
Levi walked out of the shop with nineteen thousand two hundred dollars in cash.
Combined with what he already had, he was sitting on over twenty-seven grand.
More than enough for the two-bedroom apartment in Bensonhurst.
Even if he had to live with the landlord upstairs, it was still better than the basement.
Getting out came first.
He was still thinking about it when Don Quixote’s beat-up Toyota pulled up.
The window rolled down.
Levi blinked.
His uncle had actually cleaned up.
Shaved, haircut, wearing a slightly oversized but clearly custom suit.
Levi could see the embroidered initials on the cuff: D.C.
“Got a hot date?” Levi asked, grinning as he climbed in.
“You’re looking sharp as hell.”