“Or maybe he thinks he can eat the money,” added Julian Crane, heir to a pharmaceutical empire, grinning wickedly.
Nearby, Clara Reyes gripped her cleaning cart so tightly her knuckles turned white. The handle rattled against the floor in time with her trembling. She was the night-shift janitor who had dared bring her son to work because daycare cost more than she earned in two weeks.
“Mr. Langford,” she whispered, voice almost lost beneath the jeering. “Please… we’re leaving. He won’t touch anything. I swear.”
Victor’s head snapped toward her. “Did I give you permission to speak?”
Eight years she had scrubbed his private bathrooms in silence. Eight years he had never once used her name. Now she had interrupted his game. Clara shrank back, tears brimming, pulling her son closer.
Victor turned back to the boy. “Come here, kid.”
The boy glanced at his mother. She gave the tiniest nod. He stepped forward, leaving faint dirt prints on Italian marble worth more than their entire existence.
“Can you read?” Victor asked, crouching to eye level.
“Yes, sir.”
“Can you count to a hundred?”
“Yes, sir. Easily.”
Victor rose, smirking. “Then you understand what a hundred million dollars really means?”
