There was a quiet kind of pain that lived in Kristina's joints these days. The kind that didn't announce itself with screams but whispered steadily, dull and ever-present, in her lower back, her knees, her wrists. Mornings were the worst—her body stiff, her breath shallow from the cold air that slipped through the old windows and there was this strange light headache that never goes away. The bungaloo they rented in the outskirts of Chicago didn't insulate well, but at least it was theirs for now. That meant something. After years of moving, of couch-surfing when rent outpaced their income, Kristina cherished every creaking board beneath her feet.
She wasn't old, not really. Late thirties. But it felt like life had decided to press fast forward the moment Daniel was born. She delivered him when she was barely into her twenties. A pregnancy marked by fear and exhaustion, followed by years that blurred into an endless cycle of diapers, bills, missed shifts, and arguments whispered in the kitchen late at night. Yet through it all, Daniel had been her anchor. Her reason.
She remembered when she first met Robert—Daniel's father. He was magnetic back then. Rough around the edges, always one step away from trouble, but capable. A natural leader, even if that meant leading the wrong kinds of men into the wrong kinds of places. They were just kids, both working part-time at a warehouse during the summer. He wore rebellion like a jacket, and she wore caution like a second skin. It shouldn't have worked, but it did. Until it didn't.
Chicago wasn't gentle to boys like Robert. And it was crueler to boys like Daniel.
From the start, her son had inherited that same fire. Even when he was little, he was always gathering the neighborhood kids, turning junkyard scraps into forts, assigning roles, leading with quiet authority. That scared her. Not because he was dangerous, but because he was seen. Boys who stood out in this city got chewed up fast, one way or another. She wanted to pull him close and make him invisible, to shield him. But you can't put out fire with your bare hands. You just learn to build the safest hearth around it.
The teenage years had been rough. The city grew darker in ways she never thought possible. Gangs, drugs, the slow collapse of hope in their school district. And through it all, Daniel held his own. Never quite falling in, never quite standing out. But she saw it. The exhaustion behind his eyes. The weight he carried for a boy so young.
Then came the worst of it. Robert's work dried up. Kristina lost her second job. They nearly lost the house. And Daniel? Daniel got quieter. Not in a sulking teenage way, but in a manner that terrified her. He stopped arguing, stopped asking for things. Started doing shifts at a miserable grocery store, his hands raw from carrying boxes, his back hunched before seventeen.
She found a college brochure once, tucked between his mattress and the wall. University of Chicago. An impossible dream.
They had nothing to give him. No savings, no support, barely enough for food. She had screamed at Robert that night, not out of anger but out of despair. "We ruined him. We made him grow up too fast." Robert had just stared at the wall, saying nothing. As usual.
But Daniel never complained. Never blamed them. Instead, he turned seventeen and something shifted.
It was subtle. He still helped with groceries, still kissed her cheek before bed. But something behind his eyes had changed. As if someone had turned the lights on in a dark hallway and he could see the entire house for the first time. He walked straighter. Smiled less. Spoke more precisely. And that look—that look he gave her sometimes. Like he knew something she didn't. Like he was waiting for the right moment to say it.
Kristina watched him that Sunday morning as he sat at the kitchen table, laptop open, fingers dancing across keys with a fluency she didn't understand. His old Compaq Presario, somehow still working. Claude. She thought it was a game. A boy thing. But when he spoke to it, it didn't sound like a game.
"Mom, do you want me to cover the mortgage this month?" he had asked a week after his birthday. Calm. Casual.
She nearly dropped the bowl she was drying. "Excuse me?"
"I have some money."
She wanted to laugh, to dismiss it. But he was serious. Dead serious. And then he showed her. His drawer. Thousands. More than she and Michael had ever seen in one place. It made her dizzy. She thought maybe he was in trouble. That this was some scam, some gang setup. But it wasn't. It was clean. Crisp. Real.
"How did you..."
"I just cashed. Got lucky. Please, let me help."
Kristina hadn't known what to say. Pride warred with shame. Relief tangled with fear. She cried in the shower that night, letting the water hide the sobs.
Since then, things have only gotten stranger. Daniel bought himself a car. A rusted, red Toyota Corolla that smelled. He treated it like it was a Ferrari. Called it Jimmy. Took hours polishing it in the driveway, playing old rock songs through a cracked radio.
She watched from the window, hand on her aching hip, heart swelling with confusion. Who was this boy? This man? Is this boy's puberty that Laura told me about?
And still, he didn't say much. But she felt it. Like a storm waiting at sea, not close enough to see, but near enough to taste in the air.
He had nightmares sometimes. She could hear him through the thin walls. Whispering in his sleep. Names, numbers, things that made no sense. Once, she heard him say, "I'm sorry."
Kristina hadn't entered his room. She just sat on the couch, awake until morning.
Some nights, when Robert was asleep and the city outside went quiet for once, she'd sit in the kitchen with a cup of coffee gone cold, staring at the closed door to Daniel's room. Remembering his laugh when he was a baby. The way he used to hide behind her legs when strangers came too close. How he once told her he wanted to build skyscrapers so tall he could touch the stars.
Now he moved like a boy already halfway there.
She didn't know what he was planning. She didn't understand the full scope of what he was doing. But she knew this: something inside her son had cracked open. And what poured out wasn't anger or trauma or pain.
It was purpose.
Kristina ached in her bones, but more than that, she ached in her heart. For the years they lost. For the burdens he bore too early. For the fact that she would never be able to give him what he truly deserved.
But maybe, just maybe, he was finding a way to give it to himself.
And then, one afternoon, he said they needed to talk, so he sat them down. Not as a boy. As a man.
He told them everything.
Not just about the online trades, the accounts or the early gains. He told them about the investments, the decisions, the structure. The company. Haizen Holdings. The construction plans. The design ideas. The way he wanted to lift them—not just from poverty, but into purpose.
And then he showed them the folder.
Kristina could still remember the weight of it in her hands. Ordinary, blue plastic. Inside, pages. Statements. Printouts. Numbers that didn't make sense.
"Seventy million," he said.
She remembered laughing. Not because it was funny—but because it wasn't. Because her mind couldn't wrap around the number. Her heart couldn't fit it.
She looked at Robert, saw the disbelief there. The fear. The guilt.
But she? She felt something else.
A deep, low flutter in her chest. Not pride, not yet. Something more fragile. More reverent.
Who is this boy? she thought, as Daniel kept talking. What have we done to deserve him?
Later that night, while Robert sat on the porch trying to breathe, Kristina lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. Silent tears slid down the sides of her face. Her hands clasped on her stomach, as if she were praying but didn't know the words.
She didn't sleep.
She kept seeing his face. His calm. The weight of what he carried.
She thought of the years they failed him. Of the dreams she buried because there was never time, never money, never energy.
And yet somehow, her son had found all of it. Dug it out from somewhere invisible. Built a future from the scraps they left him.
And so she watched. Quietly. Proudly. With the kind of love that never announces itself, only endures.
In the morning, she would make his favorite breakfast. Just eggs and toast, but the kind he liked. He never asked for it, but she made it anyway.
Because that's what you do when you love someone more than the world has allowed.
You show up. You endure. And you hope they know.
Even if you never find the words.
[AN: Ghost readers, I came here to bargain.
You help me get to 100 votes by the end of this week, and I'll drop the normal 4 chapters + a 15-chapter mass release. That's right—nineteen chapters, free, unleashed, and probably a decision I'll regret when I haven't slept in two days.
All I ask is this:
Vote.
Leave a review.
Share the novel with someone who loves dark sci-fi, time travel, and chaotic god-tier AIs.
And here's the fun part—The first 5 honest reviewers (not just "great book," I mean real feedback) will get something more than a thank you. You'll be written into the novel.
Yes.You.In the book.
Possibly with a full chapter of Claude whipping you, mocking you, or saving your life depending on how creative you get.
Deal?
Good.
Let's see what you're made of.]