The black Rolls-Royce moved smoothly through Manhattan traffic.
Chris sat in the rear seat, casually scrolling through reports on a tablet while rain slid across the tinted windows.
Behind the wheel sat Diablo.
The primordial demon looked perfectly natural in the driver’s seat.
Black suit.
White gloves.
Calm expression.
A terrifying entity capable of folding most humans into decorative shapes before breakfast.
The car was silent.
Until the rear door opened.
“Mr. Sterling.”
Arthur Graves slid into the seat opposite Chris.
The family lawyer adjusted his tie and offered a professional smile.
“Arthur.”
Chris returned the greeting with a polite nod.
The car pulled away from the curb.
For several moments, only the sound of rain filled the cabin.
Then Arthur spoke.
“I heard about your recent decision.”
Chris didn’t bother looking up from the tablet.
“Which one?”
“Your intention to become involved in company operations.”
There it was.
Chris almost smiled.
The board hadn’t even lasted a week before making a move.
Arthur folded his hands together.
“Chris, I strongly advise you to reconsider. You should remain focused on your education. Finish college. Live your life.” Arthur’s voice remained calm and fatherly.
“The board and I can manage Sterling Global. That’s what experienced executives are for.”
A normal sixteen-year-old might have found the offer comforting.
Chris wasn’t a normal sixteen-year-old.
He simply smiled.
“I know you can.”
Arthur relaxed slightly.
Then Chris continued.
“But I think it’s time I familiarize myself with the company.”
The smile remained on his face.
The atmosphere changed instantly.
Arthur’s posture shifted.
Gone was the concerned family advisor.
Gone was the patient mentor.
He leaned back in his seat as if he owned the world.
As if Chris was simply a child who had forgotten his place.
“The board isn’t happy with your decision,” Arthur said, his expression hardening.
“Your father spent decades building Sterling Global.” His eyes narrowed slightly.
“And now you’re planning to throw yourself into matters you don’t understand.”
Chris almost laughed.
Arthur pressed forward.
“If this continues, your family’s legacy could be destroyed.”
That finally earned a response.
Chris lowered the tablet.
“Destroyed?”
“Yes.” Arthur nodded.
“By inexperience.”
For several seconds, Chris simply stared at him.
Then he smiled again.
A smaller smile this time.
“I could accept incompetence,” Chris said, his voice entirely flat.
“I could even accept greed. But I can’t trust a company filled with people who couldn’t even pretend to mourn their colleague for at least two days after his death.”
Silence.
Arthur’s expression hardened further.
The mask was completely gone now.
“Do you really think you can continue living like this?” Arthur leaned forward, his voice becoming quieter, colder.
“Remember something, Chris. Sometimes orphans don’t handle grief very well.” A pause.
“Sometimes they even kill themselves after losing their families.”
The words hung in the air.
The moment they left Arthur’s mouth, the atmosphere changed.
Not gradually.
Instantly.
Arthur froze.
Every instinct in his body screamed danger.
The air suddenly felt heavy, oppressive.
It was as if an apex predator had entered the vehicle.
His heart started beating faster.
Sweat appeared on his forehead.
Across from him, Chris remained perfectly calm.
Behind the wheel, Diablo’s eyes were fixed on the road.
Expressionless.
Motionless.
Yet somehow Arthur felt as if death itself had turned around and looked directly at him.
Then Chris spoke.
“Diablo.”
“Yes, Master?”
“Stop the car.”
The pressure vanished instantly.
Arthur sucked in a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.
The Rolls-Royce smoothly pulled over to the side of the road.
Chris looked at him.
His smile was gone.
“Get out.”
Arthur blinked.
“What?”
“Get out.”
“Chris, I don’t think—”
“No.” Chris cut him off.
“Stop this bullshit and get out.”
The lawyer’s face darkened.
For a moment, it looked like he wanted to argue.
Then he glanced toward the driver.
Diablo finally met his eyes in the rearview mirror.
Arthur immediately looked away.
Every survival instinct he possessed told him that continuing this conversation would be a mistake.
Chris opened the door for him.
“We’ll meet on the day of the board meeting.”
Arthur stepped out onto the sidewalk.
Rain splashed against his shoes.
Chris offered him one final smile.
“I hope you prepare a good gift for me,” Chris said softly.
Arthur frowned, wiping the rain from his face.
“What does that mean?”
Chris’s smile widened.
“Because my return gift will be so memorable… that you’ll remember it for the rest of your life.”
The door shut.
The Rolls-Royce pulled away, leaving Arthur standing alone in the rain.
For the first time in years, the veteran lawyer felt something he hadn’t experienced since the beginning of his career.
Fear.
The moment the Rolls-Royce disappeared into traffic, Chris started laughing.
At first it was quiet.
Then louder.
Then loud enough that Diablo glanced at him through the rearview mirror.
“He threatened my life,” Chris said, shaking his head.
“He actually threatened my life. That’s adorable.”
The rain continued sliding down the windows.
For a moment, Diablo remained silent.
Then he noticed something unusual.
Chris wasn’t looking at Manhattan anymore.
His eyes were focused somewhere far away, drifting back into the neat, high-definition filing cabinets of his upgraded mind.
Photographic Memory ensured he remembered every single detail perfectly.
He remembered a classroom from his previous life.
Cheap desks.
Cheap uniforms.
Cheap people.
The guy had been bigger than him.
Popular.
The kind of person who thought being feared was the same thing as being respected.
Chris couldn’t even remember what the argument had started over, but he remembered the ending.
The guy had cornered him after school.
“I’ll destroy your life.” Chris remembered those exact words.
Not because they were scary, but because they were stupid.
People always said that.
Most of them never meant it.
This one did.
For several days afterward, the harassment continued.
Threats.
Humiliation.
Constant attempts to make his life miserable.
Eventually, Chris decided he was tired of it.
So he solved the problem.
Permanently.
A memory of a sterile hospital room surfaced.
White walls.
White sheets.
White ceiling.
Machines breathed mechanically for the boy, and monitors watched him quietly.
Chris sat beside the bed, holding a paper cup of coffee.
The boy’s eyes drifted toward the door.
His mother was outside.
Crying.
Thanking Chris.
Again.
The boy’s eyes widened, and the monitor immediately accelerated.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Chris smiled, taking a sip of his coffee.
“Relax. Or don’t. I heard your parents talking outside. They want to remove the ventilator. I don’t blame them. This place is expensive.”
The panic intensified, tears spilling over the boy’s face.
Chris leaned closer, his voice a low, pleasant whisper.
“She hugged me earlier. Your father called me family. One of your friends started a fundraiser yesterday. Guess who they put in charge of it?”
The monitor became frantic, screaming a ragged rhythm into the quiet room.
“Your family thinks I’m a saint,” Chris laughed softly.
“Your friends think I’m a saint. The doctors think I’m a saint. They all talk about how I’m sacrificing my own time, working night shifts, just to stay by your side. She said I was a wonderful friend.”
The tears streamed faster down the paralyzed boy’s cheeks.
His eyes locked onto Chris in absolute, helpless horror.
He couldn’t scream.
He couldn’t move.
He couldn’t even turn his head away from the person who had broken him.
Chris paused at the door.
Then he laughed softly.
“Actually…”
The boy’s eyes immediately locked onto him.
“There is one thing I’ve always wondered.” Chris turned around.
“You still think it was an accident, don’t you?”
The monitor skipped a beat.
Chris smiled.
“I suppose that’s understandable. Everyone else does.”
The tears stopped for a moment, confusion replacing fear.
Chris continued.
“Do you remember the warehouse?”
The confusion vanished.
The monitor accelerated.
“You remember.” His smile widened.
“The loose support. The falling equipment. The investigation. ‘A tragic accident.’ They even wrote it in the report.”
The boy’s eyes widened.
Wider.
Wider still.
Chris watched the realization begin to form.
“I spent three days planning that,” Chris whispered.
The monitor screamed.
“Three days.” Chris shrugged.
“Honestly, most of the work was timing. You were always predictable.”
He took another step toward the door.
The boy desperately tried to move, but failed.
Again.
Chris smiled.
“The funny part? You never even knew.”
The room felt smaller, colder, more suffocating.
“All these years.” Chris opened the door.
“And you still thought it was bad luck.”
The boy’s eyes shook, absolute horror replacing every other emotion.
Chris looked at him one final time.
“Everyone already decided who the victim is.” A pause, and then the smile returned.
Cold.
Certain.
Predatory.
“You’re trapped in my story.”
Then he left, the door closing behind him as the machines continued breathing.
The memory vanished.
The Rolls-Royce continued through Manhattan.
Chris’s smile slowly disappeared, the humor entirely gone.
Arthur’s words echoed inside his head: Sometimes orphans kill themselves.
A threat, poorly disguised.
His eyes moved toward the rain-covered window.
Cold.
Sharp.
Dangerously calm.
“People never learn.”
Diablo remained silent.
For the first time since meeting his master, the primordial demon understood something important.
Chris Sterling smiled far more often than he should.
And sometimes…
that smile was the most dangerous thing in the room.
The Rolls-Royce merged back into traffic.
Rain crawled down the tinted windows.
For several seconds, silence filled the cabin, until Chris spoke again, his voice dropping into a flat, professional register.
“Diablo.”
“Yes, Master?”
“I need an asset framework established off the books.”
“It will be done,” Diablo replied without a single shred of hesitation.
Chris looked out at the rain.
“For now, I want results.”
The demon’s eyes met his in the mirror.
“Master?”
“I don’t care how many hours it takes,” Chris continued, ten fingers tapping a slow, deliberate rhythm against the leather armrest.
“I don’t care how much digging is required. I don’t care who has to be watched.”
His fingers tapped slowly against the armrest.
“I care about information.”
A faint smile appeared.
“Useful information.”
Diablo remained silent.
Listening.
“Who they’re sleeping with,” Chris said quietly.
“Who they owe. Who they fear. Who they think they can trust.”
The smile widened slightly.
“And if they don’t have weaknesses…” Chris shrugged.
“Keep looking.”
Understanding flashed through Diablo’s eyes.
“As you wish, Master.”
Chris leaned back, his voice dropping to a dark, certain pitch.
“Once I know where the cracks are… everything else becomes easy.”
“If a problem requires my attention,” Chris added calmly, “bring me the solution.”
Diablo asked, “And if obtaining that solution requires… unpleasantness?”
Chris shrugged carelessly, the motion entirely fluid.
“That’s why I’m asking you.”
For the first time, a genuine smile appeared on Diablo’s face.
Small.
Knowing.
Dangerous.
“As you wish, Master.”
Chris leaned back into the leather seat.
Twenty-one days.
Three weeks.
Arthur Graves.
The executive committee.
Sixty-five percent voting control.
Chris looked out at the blurred neon lights of Fifth Avenue.
The board believed they were dealing with a grieving heir they could control, using a missing three-billion-dollar audit as a leverage play to freeze his inheritance.
They had absolutely no idea that the cash had already been scrubbed from their financial systems, or that he was currently setting Diablo loose to map their leverage points.
He mentally locked the structural timeline into place.
By the time his seventeenth birthday arrived and the trust activated, nobody in that boardroom would be voting against him.
Chris spoke again into the quiet cabin.
“My birthday is in three weeks.”
“Correct.”
A small smile returned.
“I should get Arthur a gift.”
The corner of Diablo’s mouth twitched upward into an alarming, predatory delight.
“A gift, Master?”
Chris stared out at the rain.
“A memorable one.”
The city lights reflected in the window.
Arthur wanted him afraid.
Arthur wanted him obedient.
Arthur wanted him grateful.
The smile widened slightly.
“Receiving a gift and not giving one back would be terribly rude,” Chris murmured.
Diablo remained silent, the dangerous smile on his face saying quite enough.
The Rolls-Royce disappeared into the rain.
Far behind them, Arthur Graves was probably finishing his evening—checking emails, making calls, sleeping peacefully in his comfortable, arrogant world.
For now.
Only for now
See you in the next chapter!