Chapter 414: One Billion Later

Lucas let them finish laughing.

He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just waited until the noise thinned out and the room went quiet again. Then he looked at Moretti.

"I’ll increase the offer. Extra sixty percent."

The number hit different this time.

Moretti’s eyes sharpened. The careful dealer face dropped. What replaced it was harder, almost hungry. He wanted the money now. Either this kid produced it, or he was done taking up space in the office.

"Deal," Moretti said. The soft tone was gone. "But if this payment fails, I’ll have your ass beaten and thrown in jail."

Caspian felt a small twist of disappointment. He had expected Moretti to shut it down. Instead the dealer had locked onto the number. Fine. If Moretti wanted to handle Lucas himself, Caspian would let him.

Lucas smiled.

Only Bennett caught it. There was no fear in that smile. If anything, he looked faintly amused by the threat.

He took out his phone.

"Bennett. I’ll send you the money. Transfer it from your side. My bank can’t convert dollars to euros easily on a transaction this large."

The room stared.

Then Caspian and Trent broke.

The laugh came hard and loud. Currency conversion. On a deal like this. As if that was the problem of a real buyer. It was the dumbest excuse either of them had heard all morning.

Moretti’s face tightened until the veins near his temple showed. He had already decided Lucas was playing him. The excuse was so thin it was almost insulting. The thought of telling him to just pay in dollars crossed his mind and left just as fast. There was no point. The boy wasn’t a buyer. He was a waste of oxygen with a phone.

Bennett still didn’t fully understand the move. She looked at Lucas, searching his face for anything that made sense. Whatever he was doing, he was already set on it. She stayed quiet. Inside, she wished he would just stand up and leave. The disrespect in this room had already gone past the car. Sitting here any longer felt like watching someone dig their own grave in slow motion.

Caspian finally wiped the tears of laughter from the corner of his eye and looked at Moretti, still grinning.

"Don’t worry about this bastard," he said. "I’ll handle him. Once I call my father, he won’t just lose the deal. He’ll be sleeping in a cell before the day is over. Maybe they’ll even let him keep the phone so he can check if his bank ever learned how to convert currency."

Lucas let the last of their laughter die.

He didn’t rush. One hand stayed on the arm of the chair. The other held his phone loosely against his thigh. The mockery had been loud enough. Now the room was waiting to see what he would do with the hole he had dug for himself.

He turned his head slightly toward Bennett.

"Send me your account details."

Bennett looked at him a second longer than necessary. Whatever she saw in his face made her stop asking questions. She unlocked her phone, pulled up the information, and forwarded it without a word.

Lucas opened the message, copied the details, and made the transfer.

One billion dollars.

He locked the phone and set it back on his thigh like he had just ordered lunch.

The first notification on Bennett’s phone was soft.

In the quiet office it might as well have been a gunshot.

Every pair of eyes snapped to her at once. Moretti. Caspian. Trent. Even the air seemed to lean in.

Bennett picked the phone up from her lap.

A random message.

She almost put it back down.

Then the second notification came.

This one stopped her cold.

She stared at the screen longer than anyone in the room expected. The number sat there clean, ridiculous, and completely out of place. Her thumb didn’t move. Her face barely changed, but something behind her eyes locked hard into place.

Moretti watched her without blinking, already leaning slightly forward. Caspian had stopped smiling. Trent’s folded arms loosened without him noticing, one hand half-raised like he was ready to snatch the phone and check it himself.

Bennett finally lifted her eyes from the screen.

Instead of confirming the transfer, she looked straight at Lucas.

"Why?"

The single word shifted the whole room. Confusion replaced the earlier mockery in small pieces. Moretti’s brow tightened. Caspian’s mouth opened and closed. Trent glanced between them like he had missed a step.

Lucas answered like the question was ordinary.

"Keep the rest. For the stress I’ve caused you."

Bennett stared at him.

"You shouldn’t have done that." Her voice stayed low, but the protest was clear. "This isn’t a friendly arrangement. I wasn’t looking for money."

Lucas only gave a small nod, like he had already expected the objection and filed it away.

Inside, he was waiting for something else.

The rebate.

He had sent the money. The trigger should have come. Seconds stretched. The system stayed quiet. For the first time since the meeting began, a thin edge of doubt touched him. Had the system stalled? Had the conditions failed without him seeing it?

Then the familiar tone cut through.

[Ding!]

[Congratulations, Host.]

[100x Rebate Successfully Triggered.]

[Reward Calculating...]

[Ding!]

[Funds Received: $100,000,000,000]

Lucas’s mouth curved, small and private.

That was enough.

He looked at Bennett again.

"Don’t worry about it. Just pay for the car. We’re leaving."

Only then did Bennett fully remember the rest of the room.

Moretti, Caspian, and Trent were still watching her, waiting for the confirmation they had assumed would never come. Doubt still sat on their faces, mixed with the leftover shape of the joke they had been enjoying minutes earlier. Even now, part of them expected the whole thing to collapse. Part of them still believed Lucas had not paid at all. And if he had, the extra sixty percent only proved he was a fool with money he did not understand.

Bennett tightened her grip on the phone and turned back toward the desk.