Marcus stared at Ryan for a long, hard moment, trying to find some hint of deception or hesitation.
But Ryan’s expression was carved from stone—completely serious, utterly committed.
Finally, greed won out over caution.
A deal this size?
Marcus would be insane to pass it up.
“Account number is 4829-7631-8842-3305,” he said, his voice rough.
Ryan’s fingers flew across his phone screen without hesitation.
Transfer.
Confirm.
TRANSFER SUCCESSFUL: $5,000,000.00 Ding.
Marcus’s phone chimed in his pocket.
He yanked it out with trembling hands, thumbed open his banking app, and stared at the notification like it might vanish if he looked away.
DEPOSIT: $5,000,000.00 His eyes snapped up to Ryan, and everything in his expression had changed.
The suspicion, the aggression, the contempt—all gone.
Replaced by pure, undiluted reverence.
“Boss,” Marcus said, and the word came out almost like a prayer.
He stood abruptly, his chair scraping against the concrete floor.
“You have my word.
Seven days?
Fuck that.
I’ll have your meat delivered in five.
I’ll call every supplier from here to Texas, shake down every contact I’ve got, and if I have to personally drive a refrigerated truck through the night, I’ll make it happen.” Ryan nodded once, stood, and turned toward the door.
He didn’t say goodbye.
Didn’t shake hands again.
Just walked out, leaving Marcus already barking into his phone about emergency shipments from a beef processor in Omaha.
Outside, Ryan sat in his BMW and checked his account balance.
$4,127,000 He’d burned through almost everything in a single day.
But this was just the beginning.
The fortress construction, the food supplies, the meat—those would keep him alive.
But alive wasn’t enough.
He needed more.
Ryan started the engine and pulled out of the Hudson Valley Cold Storage parking lot, merging onto the highway heading south.
Over the next six hours, he moved through the region like a man possessed.
Stop One: Crystal Springs Water Bottling Plant, Poughkeepsie The plant manager—a nervous man named Gerald who kept adjusting his glasses—stared at Ryan’s phone screen showing a wire transfer for $600,000.
“You want…
our entire production output for the next three months?
That’s 2.5 million gallons of bottled water.
We have contracts with grocery chains, restaurant suppliers—” “Buy them out,” Ryan said flatly.
“Double whatever penalties you’ll face for breaking those contracts.
I want every bottle you produce delivered to this address.” Gerald looked at the Matthews Estate address, then back at Ryan.
“This is insane.” “This is business.
Yes or no?” “…Yes.
God help me, yes.” Stop Two: Summit Outdoor Gear, White Plains The owner—a grizzled former Army Ranger named Tom—looked at the list Ryan had handed him and whistled low.
“Two hundred heavy-duty winter parkas, rated to negative sixty degrees.
Three hundred pairs of insulated boots.
Five hundred military-grade sleeping bags.
A hundred tents.
Portable heaters, hand warmers, thermal underwear…” Tom looked up.
“You planning an Arctic expedition?” “Something like that,” Ryan said.
“Can you source it?” “Yeah, but most of this stuff has to be special-ordered from manufacturers.
The timeline—” Ryan showed him the $400,000 wire transfer confirmation.
“—is no problem at all,” Tom finished smoothly.
“I’ll have my guys working overtime.
You’ll get everything within six days.” Stop Three: Empire State Industrial Supply, Yonkers The warehouse was a cavern of steel, machinery, and tools.
Ryan walked past aisles of generators, welding equipment, power tools, and construction materials.
The owner—a woman named Sarah who looked like she could bench-press a forklift—crossed her arms and smirked at Ryan’s order.
“Twenty diesel generators, the big boys—50kW minimum.
Five thousand feet of heavy-gauge electrical cable.
Hundred cutting torches.
Power tools, hand tools, every type of saw and drill we stock.
Steel beams, rebar, fasteners…” She shook her head.
“Kid, you building a city or starting a war?” “Neither.
Both.
Does it matter?” “Not if you’re paying.” Sarah named a price.
Ryan wired her $950,000 without blinking.
Her smirk became a genuine smile.
“Pleasure doing business with you, Mr.
Matthews.” The sun was setting by the time Ryan made his final stop: Apex Pharmaceuticals Distribution Center on the outskirts of Tarrytown.
The operations director—a fastidious man in his fifties named Dr.
Chen—reviewed Ryan’s list with increasingly raised eyebrows.
“Antibiotics: amoxicillin, azithromycin, ciprofloxacin—full spectrum, five thousand doses each.
Painkillers: morphine, oxycodone, ibuprofen.
Anti-virals.
Anti-parasites.
Insulin.
EpiPens.
Surgical supplies.
Trauma kits.
This reads like a hospital stockroom inventory for a small city.” “That’s about right,” Ryan said.
“Some of these medications are controlled substances.
We’ll need prescriptions, documentation, regulatory approval—” Ryan showed him a wire transfer for $1.2 million.
Dr.
Chen stopped talking.
“I’ll need to…
make some calls,” he said slowly.
“Grease some wheels with the DEA, the FDA.
It can be done, but it won’t be cheap or easy.” “Add another $300,000 for your trouble,” Ryan said.
“Just make it happen.” Dr.
Chen nodded slowly.
“Consider it done.” By the time Ryan walked out of Apex Pharmaceuticals, it was 9:47 PM and he had exactly $176,000 left in his personal account.
He’d spent the day burning through nearly his entire liquid net worth—placing orders that individually would have seemed insane, but collectively amounted to something much bigger.
A complete survival infrastructure.
Food.
Water.
Shelter.
Medicine.
Tools.
Clothing.
Power generation.
Everything he’d need to weather the apocalypse and come out the other side not just alive, but thriving.
But there was still one piece missing.
One crucial element he couldn’t afford to overlook.
Ryan sat in his car, staring at the darkening sky.
In his previous life, he’d seen it happen over and over again.
Survivors with food and shelter getting overrun by armed gangs.
Peaceful groups destroyed by violent raiders.
The strong taking from the weak, because in the apocalypse, might made right.
Having supplies meant nothing if you couldn’t defend them.
He needed weapons.
In the United States, that should have been easy—just walk into any gun store, fill out a 4473 form, pass a background check, and walk out armed.
But New York State had some of the strictest gun laws in the country.
Handgun permits took months.
AR-15s were banned.
Magazine capacity was limited.
And buying the kind of firepower Ryan actually needed—military-grade hardware, full-auto capability, serious stopping power—was illegal for civilians.
Fortunately, Ryan knew a workaround.
He pulled out his phone and scrolled through his contacts until he found a name he’d gotten years ago from a college friend who’d had some shady connections: Victor No last name.
Just Victor.
Known in certain circles as “the Ghost” because he could source anything—drugs, documents, weapons—and disappear without a trace if things went sideways.
Ryan had never called the number before.
Had never needed to.
But he’d kept it, just in case.
He took a deep breath and dialed.
The phone rang.
And rang.
And rang.
Just when Ryan thought it would go to voicemail, the call connected.
“Yeah?” A voice like gravel scraping over glass.
“I need hardware,” Ryan said, keeping his voice neutral.
“The kind that helps people see my point of view.” Silence on the other end.
Long enough that Ryan started to wonder if the call had dropped.
Then: “What kind of hardware?” “Two handguns—9mm, reliable, nothing fancy.
Five rifles—AR platform, semi-auto.
Ammunition for both.
And I need it fast.” More silence.
“Twenty-five thousand,” the voice said.
“Cash.
No negotiation.” “Deal.
Where and when?” “You know the old Riverside Industrial Park?
East side of Yonkers, been abandoned for five years?” “I’ll find it.” “Be there at midnight.
Come alone.
Bring the cash in a bag.
If I see anyone else, if I see cops, if I smell a setup—you’ll never hear from me again, and the people who come asking questions about you won’t find answers they like.
Understood?” “Understood.” The line went dead.
Ryan checked the time: 10:03 PM.
He had less than two hours.
Ryan stopped at a Chase Bank ATM and withdrew the maximum daily limit from his account—$5,000.
Then he hit two more ATMs using different cards, pulling out another $10,000.
The remaining $10,000 he’d have to get from the emergency cash he kept in his father’s safe at the estate.
By 11:15 PM, he had $25,000 in hundred-dollar bills stuffed into a plain black duffel bag.
He typed the Riverside Industrial Park address into his GPS and started driving.
The route took him through increasingly sketchy neighborhoods—shuttered storefronts, chain-link fences, graffiti-covered walls.
The kind of area where people minded their own business and didn’t ask questions.
Perfect for an illegal arms deal.
The Riverside Industrial Park was exactly as advertised: abandoned.
A sprawling complex of warehouse buildings, half of them partially demolished, surrounded by cracked asphalt and weeds growing through the pavement.
Ryan pulled into the lot and killed his headlights.
The place was dead silent except for the distant hum of traffic from the highway.
He rolled down his window, lit a cigarette he’d bummed from a gas station (he didn’t smoke, but it gave him something to do with his hands), and waited.
11:47 PM.
11:52 PM.
11:58 PM.
At 12:01 AM exactly, headlights appeared from the far side of the complex.
A beat-up white van—no markings, primer spots on the hood—rolled slowly across the lot and stopped about thirty feet from Ryan’s BMW.
The engine stayed running.
The headlights stayed on, pointed directly at Ryan’s car, making it impossible to see who was inside.
Then two figures stepped out.
Both wore dark hoodies and black masks—the kind you’d see at a protest, covering everything but their eyes.
One was tall and thin, moving with a predator’s grace.
The other was shorter, stockier, holding something that might have been binoculars.
They didn’t approach.
Just stood there, watching.
Ryan understood.
They were checking for backup, for cops, for anything that smelled like a trap.
He took a final drag on the cigarette, flicked it away, and stepped out of the BMW with his hands visible and empty.
He spread his arms wide and turned in a slow circle, showing he wasn’t armed, wasn’t wired, wasn’t a threat.
The two figures seemed to confer silently.
Then the taller one spoke into what looked like a radio clipped to his collar.
A third figure emerged from the van.
This one was smaller, slighter, moving with the careful economy of someone who’d spent a lifetime staying unnoticed.
He carried a black duffel bag that looked identical to Ryan’s.
He walked forward until he was about ten feet from Ryan, then stopped.
“You’ve got what I need?” Ryan asked.
“You’ve got what I need?” the figure replied.
The voice matched the one from the phone—rough, hoarse, probably disguised.
Ryan held up his duffel bag.
The figure did the same.
“On three,” the figure said.
“We both drop the bags, back up, then inspect.” Ryan nodded.
“One.” “Two.” “Three.” Both bags hit the ground simultaneously.
Ryan took three steps back.
So did the figure.
“Check it,” the figure said.
If you are interested can check it out.