The door came off its hinges before Ryan touched the handle.
Four large figures filed through with the professional ease of men who did this regularly. Duke Morrison came in last — five-foot-five of coiled menace in a leather jacket, dropping onto Ryan's secondhand couch like it was a throne. He examined his nails with the unhurried patience of someone who already knew how the next ten minutes were going to go.
"Time's up, kid."
Ryan's pulse registered the situation accurately. Four large men. One exit. His back against the kitchen counter. The jar on the top shelf behind him, visible if anyone looked.
He had already run the math.
$300,000 borrowed. $1 of interest per day. Three days overdue. Total owed: $300,003. Divided by one million: thirty cents principal, three-tenths of a cent in interest. Total owed to Duke Morrison, in real purchasing power: thirty cents.
"Break a hand first," Duke told the two nearest men with the easy authority of someone ordering coffee. "A foot if you prefer. Your call."
The two men moved.
"I can pay the full amount," Ryan said. "Today. Right now."
Duke held up a hand. The men stopped.
"Full amount," Duke repeated slowly. "Three hundred thousand dollars. In this apartment."
"Thirty cents," Ryan said. "That's what you're owed. The world changed last night."
He reached up to the kitchen cabinet and pulled down the glass jar. Set it on the coffee table between them.
A half-gallon Mason jar, full to the lid. Dollar bills in thick folded stacks. A layer of fives. Silver dollar coins layered four inches deep at the base, each one catching the apartment's dim light like something deliberately arranged.
Nobody spoke.
In Riverdale City, a full-time worker cleared four cents a year. A jar of silver dollars sitting on a secondhand coffee table wasn't loose change. It was a dynasty displayed without ceremony, and every man in the room understood exactly what they were looking at.
Ryan counted out four dimes and arranged them on the table.
"Thirty principal. Three for interest, rounded up." He slid the coins forward. "Keep the change."
Duke looked at the coins. Then at the jar. Then at Ryan. Something worked through his expression — not the violent recalculation Ryan had expected. Something quieter. More specific. The arithmetic had completed itself and arrived somewhere Duke hadn't anticipated.
"My arrangement with you," Duke said slowly, "was never a registered contract. No notary. No collateral on file. Just a signature on paper I kept in a drawer." He picked up one of the dimes and turned it between his fingers. "Which means it went with everything else."
"Thirty cents principal," Ryan confirmed. "Three for the interest."
Duke set the dime back on the table.
Nobody moved.
Ryan watched the exact moment Duke Morrison — who had broken a man's hand for three dollars and once repossessed a family's furniture over a missed weekly payment — underwent a fundamental reorientation of everything he understood about the person sitting across from him.
"Ryan." Duke's voice had changed entirely. "Why didn't you say something earlier?"
He stood. The entire atmosphere reorganized.
"You two." He turned on his nearest crew member. "Get off that wall. Does this man look comfortable?" He grabbed the next man's arm. "The door. You pulled it off the hinges. Put it back."
Ryan stared at him.
Duke produced a business card. *Vice President, Cornerstone Capital Solutions.* "Anything you need. Finance, logistics, security, connections — day or night. I mean that."
Ryan slid the business card into his jacket pocket.
"I'll be in touch," he said.
Duke filed his crew out in two minutes flat. One man reinstalled the door with remarkable speed and genuine focus. Duke paused at the threshold and looked back at Ryan with the specific expression of a man who had just recategorized someone from debtor to asset.
"One thing," Duke said. "The woman who left you. Chelsea."
Ryan went still.
"She called someone this morning," Duke said. "A guy I know runs background checks. She's asking around about your money. How you got it. Where it came from." He paused. "I thought you should know."
The door closed.
Ryan stood at the window, jar tucked under one arm, looking out over Riverdale City.
Thirty-seven cents left in his pocket. $52,847.30 in his vault. A former loan shark who now called him by his first name.
And Chelsea Anderson, already circling.
**[MISSION 1 — COMPLETE]**
*Reward: Withdrawal Module activated. Same-day settlement on all transfers.*
*New Mission: A diner. A fifty-dollar bill. Tomorrow morning. Someone is about to misunderstand you badly. Let them.*
> **[Hook]** *Ryan looked at the new mission notification. Let them misunderstand. He understood the instruction. What he didn't understand yet was that the woman he was about to humiliate in a diner would set off a chain of events that would land him in handcuffs — and introduce him to the most important contact he hadn't made yet.*