Urban Plundering: I Corrupted The System!

[Master, that's cheating,] Levi deadpanned, her tone dry and laced with something between judgment and amused horror. [Like, straight-up cosmic fraud. You're actually thinking of robbing the literal law of balance.]

Parker didn't even blink. "Cheating is just... strategy with flair."

[Strategy with flair? That's your excuse for abusing the timeline like it's your personal piggy bank?]

"Look," he said, lifting the card to eye level, admiring it like a connoisseur about to sip a five-thousand-year-old bottle of wine. "If the universe wants to hand me a once-in-a-lifetime cheat code—fifty goddamn times the cashback, might I add—who am I to disrespect that opportunity by not exploiting it to the max?"

[You sound like a Bond villain. With a trust fund.]

"Correction: a Bond villain with infinite stats and a moral compass that spins like a drunk compass app."

[That's not something to brag about, Master.]

"It kinda is."

Levi hissed like static through the neural link, irritated and probably rolling her non-existent eyes. [One day, the universe will clap back.]

"Then it better bring backup," Parker said coolly, flicking the card like it was a poker chip and smirking. "Because I've been clapping first since birth."

[Oh gods, you're insufferable.]

"And adorable," he added.

[Debatable.]

He laughed under his breath, still twirling the silver card between his fingers like it was nothing more than a toy—but even Levi could feel the weight of his intent. He wasn't just planning something. He was building something. Quietly. Calculatively.

And the universe?

Well, it better start updating its firewall.

*

Of course, there was more. The Ultimate Option hadn't just been generous—it had been fucking insane. Infinity stats, two 50x Cashback Cards that could break the global economy if used right, and the final prize—a beach house.

Parker, still half-draped across his bed like a modern-day king who just remembered he ran empires, snapped his fingers. "Drop the papers, Levi."

There was a shimmer. Then—flop.

A sleek black folder materialized on the bedspread, embossed in dark silver with no logo, no name. Very off-grid. Very high-level. Very 'Parker-coded.' He flipped through the documents with that smooth indifference of someone who'd signed off on billion-dollar deals before brushing his teeth.

No images.

Just paperwork.

No pictures of the house—none. Not a single glossy shot or aerial drone peek. Unfortunately, he would've loved to see what it looked like. The only thing whispering about its existence was a barely legible signature at the bottom of the last page. Typical. A gift wrapped in obscurity.

Still, Parker wasn't complaining.

Given that the other rewards in this "Ultimate" bundle could literally collapse the global order if dropped in the wrong hands, he had a feeling this house wasn't just some beachy Airbnb knockoff.

Then his eyes caught the location.

Venice.

But not tourist-trap Venice.

San Nicolò al Lido.

A pocket of serenity, the kind of place where mafia heirs "disappeared" to, where old families kept summer estates no Google Earth could find. There was a small stretch of secluded beach bordering a crystalline lake—half-forgotten by the world, untouched by chaos. Quiet. Elegant. Dangerous.

He smiled.

A tour was inevitable. Tessa had three days left before she had to return to her family—and what better way to spend them than in a place built like a poem? Atalanta would tag along too, if she didn't start pretending she wasn't already halfway moved in. Maybe someone else would join them. Maybe not. Either way, Parker wasn't just planning a trip.

He was planning to own that chapter.

Then something flickered in the back of his head. He sat upright, grabbed his phone, and texted Cassidy: Put a pause on Sophisticated Space. Don't make the purchase yet. I want to be there.

He closed the phone before it buzzed back.

Was there a better way to test out those cheat-code Cashback Cards than slamming them down while buying multi-billion-dollar real estate?

Hell. No.

His phone vibrated again with a reply, but he didn't bother checking it. He was already shifting his gaze back toward the interface only he could see—eyes set on the last three notifications and reward waiting for him in the system.

*

Ava's buy-in into Summit & Wolfe had just wrapped—clean, crisp, legal. The system's notification sat on his screen like a wink from the universe: Deal sealed. The lawyer girl now owns part of the empire.

Parker smirked. Of course she did. Ava didn't just play in boardrooms—she conquered them. Calm voice, killer contracts, and enough legal muscle to arm-wrestle Lucifer.

Then, as if fate decided to stack the Ws on one plate, the second ping came through. Cassidy had wrapped up the Blackwood buyout. That's right—the same Blackwood company that once sat like a crown jewel under Robert's name now lay gutted, signed over, and probably already flipped. Because knowing Cassidy? That woman didn't just buy companies—she prepped them for resale before the ink even dried. She might've picked it up at breakfast and sold it before lunch, sipping espresso in heels that cost more than most people's rent.

Parker chuckled. The four women were about to sleep in silk and millions. Easily.

Hell, even if they underperformed and just got lazy with it, each would be cashing out with at least $500 million plus. The bare minimum. That's if they weren't feeling particularly feral. But they were. Especially Cassidy.

He had handed them a billion-dollar corpse, and they'd necromanced it into gold. And he? He didn't give a single damn. Not when the system already hit him with:

[Ding! Spent $20B. Earned $200B.]

That wasn't cashback. That was cosmic reparations.

And the irony? Blackwood Co., once a mountain of untouchable prestige, had fallen so damn far that it was now worth just $20 billion. From a multi-billion-dollar empire to the financial equivalent of a mid-life crisis. One of the big pharmaceutical jewels reduced to a pawn-shop price tag.

Parker couldn't even fake surprise. Hell, he almost felt bad. Almost.

"It depreciated that bad, huh?" he muttered, half-laughing, half-pissed. "Twenty billion. That's all it took to pull the rug from under the Blackwoods."

No, scratch that—he didn't pull the rug.

He bought the floor.

And now he had $200B stacked like apology letters from the universe.

Parker stared at the notification like it had just confessed to murder.

[Ding! Spent $20B. Earned $200B.]

He always talked about Blackwood Co. like it was pocket change. Like it barely scratched the surface. A couple hundred million, maybe. Something to flip, resell, and forget. But the truth? The company was once a behemoth. A full-blown titan on the corporate food chain.

The kind of name that made nations flinch. Billions stacked on billions—before it crumbled like expired gold.

And now? Twenty billion was enough to buy the whole damn thing.

This was the fastest corporate nosedive in history. A fucking freefall from grace so brutal, it deserved a documentary and a sad piano soundtrack.

"Damn," he muttered, lips twitching into a cold grin. "From ruling the world to clearance aisle."

He didn't just buy a company.

He bought a legacy's corpse.

And the universe? It paid him $200 billion to do it. That alone could bankrupt a small country and still leave enough change to buy it back. The company had taken a nosedive before they snatched it. Ava went full legal assassin—threatening shareholders, strong-arming suppliers, and pretty much turning the place into a corporate warzone. That was her style. Brains and brass knuckles.

And now? Out of Blackwood hands, the market would treat it like a phoenix dipped in Versace. If Cassidy sat on it long enough, played the stock game like she always did—it'd bounce back like a teenage TikToker after getting canceled. Big. Loud. Profitable.

Parker wasn't watching that part, though. He already got his payday.

And Infinity Holdings? It was evolving into something dangerous. Something real.

From real estate to entertainment, from boardrooms to skyscrapers, the name that was meant to crawl across industries like a virus with a luxury logo. Headlines would start to ask questions. Executives would whisper behind tinted windows. No one would know who the hell Parker Black really was.

But if they learn—when they did?

It would already be too damn late.

Parker leaned back, staring at the screen like it had just handed him a glass of Dom Pérignon and whispered, "Daddy, you made it."