The Billionaire Darkness

Chapter Ninety-Two

With a flick and a near deafening downshift I rolled down into the entrance to the lot just above and behind where a group of street racers, and bookkeepers for betting on street racing gathered nearly every Wednesday night in Manhattan's less fortunate areas.

Easing past other vehicles in the lot I found a spot near the corner and backed in before climbing from my vette and walked off locking it behind me, while sticking to the shadows as I wandered towards the darkened warehouses where Ryder the race organizer and a parts importer would be checking his inventory at this time of night.

Slipping inside through a skylight with a similar grace to a spy in enemy territory, I passed along the outer wall, spotting Ryder in the middle of the room next to one of two of his prized vehicles, the hood of his E36 raised and a kit of tools on the drivers side wheel arch. Descending the stairs I moved past the shelves until I was in clear view of him, while still in a non obvious place.

"Good evening," I say from my place between two steel stands covered in various parts still in their cardboard boxes, the majority marked with sharpie and haphazardly placed on the grid shelves.

He spun around a knife coming off of his hip as he turned to face me. It was humorous at best seeing him panic slightly as I stood here, my fathers gun stored in my waistband as I met his gaze just as a passing beam of light from a car exposed my position against the concrete wall for only a second.

"Please put the knife away, you're wasting your time with that," I remark, pushing off of the wall, and moved out from the shadows, my footsteps making not so much as a slight scuffing sound as I moved towards him, examining him.

"Ryan," he says glancing back at his cars which I could appreciate, he was after all who helped me become introduced to this all when I'd originally gotten into street racing as another way to relieve stress outside of partying and boxing. What I'd learned instead from my search into the criminal activities of New York to put an end to the one Demetri had pulled me into was that the second way money was made was through the street races of Manhattan's underground.

Not that it bothered me, one needed to make money, and it was a viable option.

The part about Ryder's business that I didn't like was that his greed had gotten him into petty crime around a year ago, and on one occasion I'd found a series of bags of cash which I could upon observation locate the marker bills from the targeted bank. Taking from the people of New York was something I wasn't comfortable being in the proximity of.

"I have a proposition for you Ryder. I want the list to the entire membership of your operation, and in exchange, you will get immunity when this house of cards all comes crashing down," I say reaching into my jacket and pulling out a packet which detailed the long list of shipping containers that belonged to Ryder but supposedly were empty upon inspection, except the weights didn't line up. Then there was the bribery associated with letting that slip under the rug.

He opened it slowly and began to look through what I'd provided him, though there was a copy, and if Elijah didn't hear back from me by one AM, the second packet would arrive in the mailbox of NYPD's night shift; though what was the difference between now later when I would be taking Ryder down at the right time to clean out the theoretical closet.

"You're blackmailing me," his face contorted as he spoke, anger, and fear an amalgamation of emotion that I had expected to receive in response.

"I'm incentivizing you. Don't worry, I keep my word, you just have to give me what I want, and this little operation of yours doesn't so much as see a wire tap. You go unnoticed, and truth be told, there's three million in parts in here, and just the cost alone to move it would put you behind, the races would need to be moved, reorganized, and shifted to a different day—and that's only after you all disappear from New York for a while which would bring questions considering there are many here who would suffer more than you, though you rely on their bets, otherwise you collapse. Or am I wrong," I hum and he again as expected, lifted a nearby lighter and lit the bottom of the file before discarding it into a grease bin which began to send coils of black smoke up towards the industrial vent on the ceiling.

"Fine," he says, crossing the room just as I hear the door open on the far side of the room and the click of heels followed.

"Ladies, give us a moment, we're just finishing up some business," I call out and the footsteps pause, before the pair decide to heed my warning, and left before Ryder returned his gaze solely fixed across the room.

Fucking skirtchasing bastard.

"Here's the names, and you ruined my entertainment," he says while I simply raised a brow at him.

Escorts, why am I not surprised.

"How unpleasant. Oh and thank you for doing business with me," I muse flicking my eyes down to the list of names as I began to walk away.

"This is going to catch up to you one day, and you owe me later for this if it blows back on me!" Ryder calls at my retreating back.

"I'm going to make sure it doesn't, and we both know it'll be you that suffers if it does," I counter before climbing the stairs making the effort to ensure every one of my steps was heard until I slipped out of the skylight.

Tucking the new list of information into my jacket I returned to my car and pulled open my laptop, to scan and find everything about the list of names that Ryder had given me many had records, others were on probation, and a handful had just gotten out of the pen which gave me the distinct advantage to change how this could go down with their falls later in the year so that the fallout would never seem as though it came from me, and it would leave Ryder with the silent worry that at any point he could lose it all.

It was another step completed in the grand scheme of things, and I knew as much. Except there was the ever present issue that there was yet another variable in everything that I found myself doing. I'd even begun to plan how I was going to get the Intrigued away from Demetri, though that was still on the board for planning.

All too unconsciously I found myself driving towards Brooklyn instead of the road that would lead me back to the Hamptons. I wanted to see if she was alright, but that was dangerous, and I knew that if I did I would probably end up doing something stupid that would get me noticed and that was the very thing that couldn't happen no matter what.

Winters what the actual fuck are you doing?

Exhaling harshly at my own fucking stupidity, I took the next exit away from Brooklyn where I noticed a silver Mustang sitting gliding through a nearby street without its lights on.

I don't want to kn...

Realization kicked in, and only when I did a double take did I realize it was going deeper into Brooklyn. This was soon followed by a vengeful knot forming deep in my stomach.

Whatever you're doing, know I will find a way to ruin you for it Demetri.