Chapter 50: The Long Game
The basement lounge was quiet now, saved for the low, steady hum of the oil lamps hanging from the brick arches.
Marek had gone up to the fourth-floor sleeping quarters two hours ago, completely worn after drinking 2 glasses of whiskey. Sean and Michael had taken Phill and James McClain back to their Sullivan Street print shop to help them pack their press equipment, paper rolls, and personal trunks. Before they left, Ricky had handed Phill a Colt .38 revolver, ensuring the forgers were armed in case suspicious neighbors or curious gang scouts tried to hassle them on their move back to Washington Street.
Ricky sat alone at a wooden table near the bar, a half-empty glass of amber whiskey resting beside his open master notebook.
He leaned back against his wooden stool, gazing into the amber liquid. His modern mind was working overtime, sifting through the strategic roadmap of the near future.
Less than four years remained before 1914—before the Great War erupted across Europe, dragging England, France, Germany, and eventually America into an unprecedented industrial slaughter.
To an ordinary man, WWI was a nightmare of mud, mustard gas, and trench warfare. But to a founder possessing the interdimensional System Shop with its permanent, anti-inflation factory pricing, the war was the greatest commercial goldmine in human history.
Food, grain, canned meats, wool uniforms, leather boots, medical supplies, steel, ammunition... he could supply both Allied and neutral markets for pennies on the dollar and pull in millions of clean System Balance.
The bottleneck isn’t procurement, Ricky thought, swirling the whiskey in his glass. It’s logistics.
He couldn’t simply spawn ten thousand tons of grain or thousands of crates of whiskey onto an ocean pier without bringing every federal agent, customs inspector, and rival syndicate down on his neck. If he wanted to move massive commercial weight across the Atlantic without getting shut down by governments or hijacked by rival mobs, he couldn’t just play as a shadow street gang. He had to build a fully integrated, multi-layered corporate web.
He needed front companies. Real factories, wholesale firms, import-export houses, freight forwarding agencies, and chartered cargo space aboard established transatlantic steamship lines. He needed solid banking relationships to provide a clean paper trail for his capital.
The strategy was clear in his head: use System procurement to feed raw materials into his own front factories at fraction costs, store the manufactured stock in his own front warehouses, sell it through his own wholesale companies, and ship it via legitimate export charters under the names of his trusted core members. On paper, it would look like a sprawling, highly efficient commercial network transacting normal business. The government wouldn’t suspect a thing, and the Founder’s Syndicate would hold the puppet strings behind every layer.
It’s a massive, complicated hassle, Ricky admitted silently to himself. But it’s the only way to build an empire that survives.
Footsteps clicked softly down the dark wooden stairs leading into the lounge.
Ricky looked up. Evelyn stepped off the bottom stair into the warm amber lamplight. She wore her dark blue wool skirt and crisp white blouse, her dark hair neatly pinned back. She held a thick paper folder against her chest.
"Mr. Stevenson," Evelyn said, her voice smooth, calm, and professional in the quiet room. "Here is the acquisition estimate from Accounting."
Ricky gestured toward the wooden table. "Set it down, Evelyn."
Evelyn walked over, setting the folder in front of him. "Walter and I ran an estimated projection based on current market values across Manhattan and Brooklyn. If you intend to acquire the front assets you outlined—a medium-sized freight firm, a Brooklyn warehouse complex, a small wholesale trading house, and an import-export charter—you’re looking at a total required capital between $350,000 and $500,000."
Ricky looked down at the $350k–$500k figure written cleanly in ink at the bottom of the page. In 1910, half a million dollars was an astronomical fortune—a sum held by Wall Street barons and industrial tycoons.
Yet, instead of looking stressed, Ricky simply offered a calm, contemplative hum, leaning his chin on his fist.
Evelyn watched his relaxed posture, her clear green eyes narrowing slightly in curiosity. Without breaking her professional composure, she reached out, casually picked up Ricky’s half-empty glass of whiskey from the table, and took a slow, smooth sip directly from it.
Ricky blinked, slightly surprised by her casual boldness.
Evelyn set the glass back down on the wood, wiping her lower lip with her thumb, her cool green eyes locking onto his.
"What are you doing down here all by yourself, Mr. Stevenson?" she asked softly.
"Just thinking," Ricky said, leaning back against his stool. "Mapping out the next few years."
Evelyn looked around the quiet, whitewashed cellar, then back at him. A small, subtle smile touched her lips. "I thought you were just like any other boss who sits at the top and lets everyone else do the heavy lifting. But you’re always thinking three steps ahead, aren’t you?"
Ricky offered a small scoff, shaking his head. "Can’t help it, Evelyn. If I stop thinking, we get caught."
Evelyn stood up straight, smoothing her wool skirt with a slow, deliberate grace that was both professional and subtly captivating. She turned toward the stairs, looking back over her shoulder with a sharp, knowing glint in her eyes.
"Thanks for the drink, Mr. Stevenson," she said softly, before heading back up the wooden steps into the dark hallway above.
Ricky watched her go, a dry chuckle escaping his lips as he shook his head. He reached for the bottle, pouring another finger of whiskey into his glass.
He sat alone in the quiet golden light of the basement lounge, taking a slow sip.
His mind drifted past the 1910 brick walls, past the coal smoke and the clatter of horse hooves outside, reaching back across a century.
Man... I miss YouTube, Ricky thought with a quiet, nostalgic ache in his chest. I miss scrolling on my phone. I miss late-night Netflix, playing games on my PC, and grabbing a quick drive-thru burger with Marcus and Dre.
He looked down at his glass, watching the amber liquid swirl under the lamplight.
He was trapped in 1910, building a shadow empire from scratch. And as he took another drink, his modern, grounded mind held onto a single, quiet hope—that every move he made, every front he built, and every history line he touched wouldn’t destroy the future he had left behind.