Richest Man: It All Started With My Rebate System-Chapter 61: Brewing Plans

The next morning.

Steven was already up and dressed in his training gear before seven. He picked up his duffel bag, checked that his casual clothes were inside, and walked to the living area. He collected his key card and car key fob from the side table and left the apartment.

The hallway was quiet. The elevator came immediately. He rode it down to the garage, got into the Aston Martin, and pulled out into the morning.

The drive to LT Fitness took less than ten minutes in the early traffic. He parked, slung the bag over his shoulder, and walked to the entrance.

Raymond was already on the floor when Steven came through, standing beside the free weights section with a clipboard and a water bottle, reviewing something on the sheet in front of him. He looked up as Steven approached.

"Morning," Raymond said, extending his hand.

"Morning," Steven said, taking it.

"How was the weekend?"

"Good," Steven said. "Better than expected."

Raymond nodded. "Rest day felt like a rest day or did you spend it on the sofa?"

"Both," Steven said.

Raymond smiled briefly. "Fair enough. You ready?"

"Let’s go," Steven said.

Raymond set the clipboard down on the bench and turned to face him properly.

"Today is lower body," he said. "Squat pattern, hinge, posterior chain. Same structure as the upper session — moderate load, quality over everything else. We’re still in the foundation phase so I don’t want to see you chasing numbers."

"Understood," Steven said.

"Warm up first. Ten minutes on the bike, keep it easy."

Steven set his bag down beside the bench and walked to the cardio section. He found an open bike, adjusted the seat, and started pedalling at a steady pace.

He kept his pace easy and let his body find its rhythm. His legs loosened gradually over the first few minutes and by the time the ten minutes had passed, the stiffness from the previous session had largely worked itself out. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

He was really enjoying how his body was improving with each workout session.

***

In the far corner of a mid-range restaurant, tucked beside a window that looked out onto a quiet stretch of road, Drew and a man sat across from each other.

The man was somewhere in his late thirties, unremarkable in appearance. He wore a plain jacket, kept his hands on the table, and spoke without raising his voice.

"Here’s what you asked for," the man said, sliding a document folder across the table.

Drew picked it up, opened it, and removed the file. He read through it without speaking, his eyes moving down each page, carefully, making sure not to miss anything.

His expression darkened as he read.

He went through it a second time, slower. Then he set it down.

"This is everything?" he asked.

"Everything I could find," the man said. "I went three generations back. Parents, grandparents, extended family. There’s nothing there that connects him to any significant family, any elite network, any old money line. No trust fund history, no institutional backing, no paper trail that suggests anything beyond what the surface shows."

"What does the surface show?" Drew asked.

"A twenty year old who recently moved into River Oaks less than two weeks ago. No prior address in the area. No employment history beyond two years waiting tables at a restaurant in Montrose. No company registrations, no business history, no affiliations worth noting."

Drew looked at the file again without picking it up.

"What about the car?"

"Registered to him. Purchased outright, cash transaction, eight days ago. The dealership is on record." The man paused. "The Aston Martin is real. The apartment is real. The money appears to be real. What I can’t tell you is where it came from, because the trail stops at the account level and I don’t have the access to go further than that."

"Could he be connected to someone and kept deliberately hidden?" Drew asked. "An illegitimate child. Someone they want off the record but still taken care of."

The man considered it without dismissing it.

"It’s possible in theory," he said. "But if someone powerful enough to scrub a background like that wanted him hidden, they wouldn’t put him in River Oaks driving an Aston Martin. Hidden means hidden. This reads more like new money that arrived quickly and hasn’t been around long enough to leave a longer trail."

Drew sat back and looked out through the window for a moment.

The man across from him was right, and Drew knew it. Whatever the young man’s origin, he wasn’t connected to anyone Drew needed to be careful about. He was a nobody who had come into money recently, moved somewhere he didn’t belong, and had the arrogance of someone who hadn’t yet learned what happened to people who stepped out of their lane.

Drew had been cautious up to this point, willing to wait for information before moving. He had half-expected the file to come back with a name behind the name, something that would have required him to recalibrate. It hadn’t. What it had come back with was a twenty year old waiter with a new bank account and no one standing behind him.

That changed things considerably.

"Current address?" Drew asked.

The man tapped the bottom of the second page. "Right there."

Drew looked at it. River Oaks. He almost smiled.

"Good," he said.

The man read the shift in Drew’s expression and stood without being asked to. "I’ll leave you to it."

Drew didn’t acknowledge the departure. He was already looking back at the file, turning something over in his mind, slowly.

He had been humiliated on a rooftop terrace in front of Lena, in front of the woman he had brought, in front of strangers whose faces he hadn’t been able to look at on the way out. He had been forced to stand in front of an entire office floor and deliver a public apology he hadn’t meant a single word of. He had been suspended, dressed down by his father and sent away with a stinging face and instructions to behave.

All of it traceable back to one person.

A nobody.

A twenty year old who had waited tables in Montrose for two years and somehow found his way into a River Oaks apartment and had stood there in a rooftop lounge looking at Drew like he was something that had wandered in from the street.

Drew closed the file.

The anger that had been sitting in his chest since that night hadn’t cooled. And it will never until he had unleashed it on the person that deserves it.

He slipped the file back into the folder, picked up his coffee, and looked out through the window at the street.

He was in no hurry. The best moves never were.

"It would be a wonderful scene to watch," Drew muttered, as the sinister smile on his face widened.

***

Back at the gym, Steven had just completed his workout session for the day.

Raymond handed him a water bottle. "That’s the session. How do you feel?"

Steven considered it honestly. His legs were heavily fatigued and there was a deep tiredness in the quads and hamstrings.

"Worn out," he said.

"Good," Raymond said. "Tomorrow is upper pull. Come in at eight."

"I’ll be here," Steven said.

He picked up his bag and walked to the changing rooms. He showered, changed into his casual clothes, and packed the training gear into the duffel. He zipped it, slung it over his shoulder, and walked back through the facility.

He pushed through the entrance door and stepped out into the morning air.

The city was fully awake now, the streets busier than they had been on the drive over. He walked to the Aston Martin, loaded the bag into the back seat, and was about to get in when he heard a vaguely familiar voice call his name.