Billionaire Cashback System: I Can't Go Broke!-Chapter 32: Thirty Thousand

Ryan looked at the text for longer than was probably obvious from the outside.

*We are onto you Russo. It’s only a matter of time.*

Unknown number. No context or signature.

He read it three times, each time hoping the words would rearrange themselves into something less concerning. They didn’t. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

His first thought was the IRS. But the IRS sent emails with letterheads and formal language and meeting requests. They didn’t send late night texts from unknown numbers at agency parties.

Which meant someone else.

FBI. A private investigator hired by someone. Someone at the bank who’d noticed the deposits and decided the official channel was too slow. He didn’t know, and the not knowing was the worst part — it sat in his chest and radiated outward in a way that was difficult to ignore while also standing in a penthouse holding a drink.

He pocketed the phone.

He could think about this tomorrow. Monday was Diana. The IRS letter had a date still over a week out. Whoever had sent that text wanted him scared and off-balance, and standing in this room visibly rattled was not something he was going to do.

He looked up.

Across the room, something was happening.

---

It had started quietly — a few people gravitating toward the long table near the far windows that Ryan had assumed was decorative. It wasn’t. Someone had produced chips, another person was arranging cards with the efficiency of someone who’d done this at this specific table before. Chairs were being pulled out, occupied, the loose social energy of the party tightening into something more focused around this one point.

Poker.

The spectator layer formed quickly — people who weren’t playing but were watching, standing back far enough to observe without crowding the table.

Comments started moving through the group, low and frequent, the energy of people watching money change hands.

Ryan drifted toward it.

The players were six men, all somewhere in the same tax bracket by the look of things. One of them — at the head of the table, older, the kind of tan that came from somewhere that required a flight — was already arranging his chips with focused propriety – a person who considered himself the axis around which the game would turn.

Ryan watched them play.

He watched their body language mostly. Who checked when they shouldn’t. Who bet too fast. Who looked at their chips before deciding, which he’d read somewhere once meant something.

Zara reappeared beside him.

"Oh, they started poker night," she said.

"Apparently."

"They do this every time." She watched the table. "Marvin — the one at the head — he organizes it. He wins about sixty percent of the time and the other forty he blames on other people."

Marvin, Ryan noted. The one with the tan and the chip arrangement.

"Who’s the one in the blue jacket?"

"Founder of a media company. He plays aggressively and loses regularly and comes back every time." She lowered her voice. "I think he genuinely believes the losses are about to stop."

"They’re not."

"They’re not," she agreed.

They watched a hand play out. The blue jacket man bet heavily, someone folded, someone matched, and at the reveal his face did the thing faces do when the cards don’t match the confidence that was put into them.

The round finished.

The man to Marvin’s left — the one who’d been losing most steadily since Ryan had started watching — pushed back from the table and stood up, dropping his cards with finality, he knew his evening had given him everything it was going to give.

"I’m done," he said. "That’s me for the night."

Marvin looked around the table, then at the spectators. "We have a seat."

A couple of people shook their heads. Someone made a joke about their wife finding out. The hesitation moved through the small crowd.

Ryan raised his hand.

"I could try," he said.

The room shifted. It didn’t happen dramatically — it was a small reorientation of attention that happened when something unexpected entered a space.

Marvin looked at him, he was the one that was being talked about. Looked him over — the full assessment, top to bottom, the green shirt and the blazer and the fact that he was, in this room, an unknown quantity.

"Buy-in for this table is quite high," Marvin said. "I don’t think it’s something IT guys would want to be part of."

Ryan looked at him. "Really. What’s the buy-in? Hundred thousand? Two hundred?"

Something moved across Marvin’s face. The smug certainty of a moment ago shifted into an expression he had to recalibrate quickly.

"Thirty thousand," he said.

Ryan nodded slowly. "Thirty." He paused. "That’s a bit anticlimactic. The way you said it I thought I’d at least get the chance to take real money off you lot."

This got a reaction. Not from Marvin — from everyone else. The blue jacket man made a sound that was almost a laugh. Someone at the far end of the table sat up slightly. The spectators around them were paying closer attention now.

Marvin kept his expression even. "You have to produce the thirty thousand before you sit down."

"Yeah," Ryan said. "That’s how buy-ins work." He reached into his jacket and produced his wallet. "Do you take debit or Paysend? I don’t usually walk around with thirty thousand in my pocket."

He held out his card.

The room went quiet how it did when something shifted in a direction nobody had expected. Someone who worked the event — one of the catering staff who’d been managing drinks — came forward after a glance from Zara.

Ryan handed the card over. The man produced a small card reader from somewhere, entered the amount, turned the screen to Ryan.

Ryan tapped the card.

The machine beeped.

Approved.

He took the card back and put it in his pocket without looking at Marvin or anyone else, just the simple transaction of a man who had completed an administrative step and was ready to move on.

He pulled out the chair and sat down.

Zara was standing in the spectators. She had the composed expression she wore in public but her eyes were doing something else entirely — bright, following everything, privately delighted in a way she wasn’t fully suppressing.

The man in the blue jacket was grinning outright.

Marvin was looking at his chips.

Someone at the table — younger, closer to Ryan’s age, a watch that cost more than most cars — leaned forward on his elbows.

"Confident," he said. "You must be seriously skilled at poker."

Ryan looked at the cards being dealt to him, face down, sliding across the felt.

He smiled.

"Skilled?" he said. "I haven’t played poker a day in my life."