I Inherited Trillions, Now What?

While the world scrolled.

While fingers danced across glowing screens, eyes glazed in the blue light of mindless amusement, and headlines about feuds between rappers, celebrity divorces, and viral dances consumed the attention of millions—the plot was lost.

Responsibility was traded for reaction videos.

Duty drowned in the sea of digital illusions.

News became noise.

Entertainment became religion.

And in this cathedral of distraction, the people worshipped passively, outsourcing thought and truth for dopamine.

The tragedy wasn't just what they consumed—it was what they forgot.

The truth. The power of awareness. The weight of citizenship.

While they debated who dropped the better verse in a rap beef, decisions that would shape their children's futures were being signed in rooms they would never see.

The poor, ever faithful to the opium of the now, laughed while being robbed.

And the rich—oh, they smiled. Because ignorance was more profitable than gold.

But for Nathaniel Rockerfeller, there was no such distraction.

No tweet. No fight. No petty drama had even flickered across his mind. He didn't care who clapped back. He was thinking in decades. He was carving into empires.

He was still in the courtroom.

The case had adjourned. The guests had left. Reporters lingered outside. But Nathaniel remained. Not out of sentiment—but strategy.

He stood alone by the long wooden table, the dim chandelier above casting jagged shadows across his sharp suit. His jaw was clenched, his mind roaring. His hands rested behind his back, posture rigid, but his foot tapped the floor with a predator's rhythm.

Every breath he took felt like it belonged to war.

Right now, he and Alexander were 50/50.

But that wasn't enough. Balance was not victory.

Nathaniel didn't want peace.

He wanted domination.

If he couldn't wrestle Blackwell Investments from Alexander entirely, then he would ensure what Alexander held would be so shattered, so hollow, so unrecognizable—it wouldn't even be worthy of the name "Blackwell."

Losing at least 40% of the American portfolio would be devastating. But Nathaniel?

He wanted more.

He wanted venom in the wound.

The phone was pressed to his ear.

"Yes. I need you to open an SEC investigation into these companies," Nathaniel said, voice low, firm—steel wrapped in velvet.

He paused, listening to the voice on the other side.

"Apple. Johnson & Johnson. Microsoft. Amazon. Nvidia."

He smiled slightly. That smile that never reached his eyes. That smile that said someone, somewhere, was about to suffer.

The voice on the other end raised a concern. Something about the validity, the longevity of such probes.

Nathaniel's smile thinned. His eyes narrowed.

"I know it won't hold. It doesn't have to. Tell the other families it's just temporary. The cases will be dismissed eventually. But by then… the damage will have been done."

His tone was ice. Calculated.

He didn't need a win. He needed chaos.

He needed markets to bleed. He needed shareholders to panic.

He needed Alexander to hold on to a burning rope, watching the fibers snap one by one.

"Thank you, Franklin," he said finally, voice warming just for a moment.

He dropped the phone from his ear and turned.

His secretary stood nearby—tall, alert, already holding a tablet and stylus. She had learned long ago never to assume he wasn't talking to her.

"You," Nathaniel said sharply.

"Sir," she answered instantly.

"Tell the people at BlackRock to prepare for a massive job. I want them to start stockpiling cash. Now. Even if they have to use the reserves."

He began pacing, each step like a loaded metronome ticking toward catastrophe.

"Minimum—five hundred billion. I don't care how. Borrow it. Sell it. Repossess it. Just have it ready. Within the next ten days."

"Yes, sir," the secretary said, already dialing, her fingers trembling slightly from the sheer audacity of the order.

Nathaniel paused. The silence between his thoughts felt charged, as if lightning was waiting to strike. Then he turned suddenly and slammed his fist against the oak table. The echo bounced across the empty courtroom like a war drum.

"This is chess. Not a circus," he muttered, his voice a low snarl. "Let the fools dance.'"

He walked to the window, pulling aside the heavy curtain. Outside, journalists snapped photos and speculated about the case. He shook his head in disgust.

"They don't see the bloodline of power shifting. They don't see the battlefield beneath their feet."

Turning back, he locked eyes with his secretary.

"This is a kill move," he said flatly. "And when it lands, it won't just shake Alexander. It'll shake the entire financial floor under him."

She nodded, barely breathing.

"I want statements ready for Bloomberg and CNBC. I want whispers planted in D.C. about 'unethical tech dealings.' I want senators unsure of which way is up by the end of the week. And get me in touch with DeWitt in Geneva. If Alexander tries to offload to the Swiss accounts, I want those gates locked shut."

He stopped pacing and took a deep breath, fixing his tie.

Desmond stood still, his arms at his sides, his face unreadable. He had heard the names. Apple. Johnson & Johnson. Microsoft. Amazon. Nvidia. To the average ear, it sounded like a roll call of the American economic pantheon. But to Desmond—who had spent two decades buried in spreadsheets, deal memos, and strategic dossiers, obsessively preparing for a future that had just been denied—those names were blood. They were Blackwell Investments' most valuable assets in the United States. Alexander had been ordered by the court to sell them, and now Nathaniel—cold, cunning, calculating Nathaniel—was going to tank the market around them. Drive the prices into the mud. And then? He would send in his wolves to devour what was left. Buy it all. Own it all.

Brilliant.

It was a devastatingly elegant play, and Desmond knew it. He also knew what it meant for him—nothing. No redemption, no comeback. He was out. Irrelevant. A relic of a war that was already lost.

He laughed.

Soft at first, a bitter chuckle at the edge of his lips. Then louder. Deeper. A howl of irony and pain and something else—something twisted. The whole courtroom turned toward him. Nathaniel paused mid-sentence, his phone slowly lowering from his ear. Even Whittaker, still smarting from the legal defeat disguised as compromise, turned.

Desmond was laughing like a man unhinged.

"So that's it," Desmond said, his voice echoing in the sacred quiet of the chamber. He took a few slow steps forward, surveying the room. His eyes were bloodshot but alive. He looked at them all like a man staring at ghosts.

"You lost, Whittaker," he said, walking up to the lawyer and clapping him on the shoulder with mock comfort. "Lost to a boy. A boy who, as my grandfather would say, doesn't yet know the side of the yam that touches the fire. And yet—here we are. Your name, etched in the record books under 'Defeated.' Don't forget, Whittaker... this might have been dressed up in robes and ribbons, but the paper says what it says. You lost."

Whittaker's jaw tightened, but he said nothing.

Nathaniel raised a brow. "Desmond."

Desmond waved his hand, dismissing the interruption. "No, no, Nathaniel. I know. I know what this is."

He turned slowly, walking toward the judge's bench with almost theatrical reverence. His footsteps echoed like drumbeats of judgment. He mounted the dais and sat in the judge's seat, crossing his legs, his eyes sweeping over the room with an eerie calm.

"Do you know where we are?" he asked. "This isn't just any court. This is a special federal courtroom in Washington D.C. Decisions made here ripple across continents. This is a temple, and that gavel there? That's not just wood. It's a wand. One swing, and futures vanish. One tap, and empires change hands."

He picked up the gavel gently, holding it in both hands like a sacred object.

"They call this justice," he muttered. "But justice without leverage... is just poetry."

He smiled. It was not a happy smile. It was hollow, haunting.

"Power isn't in verdicts. Power isn't even in truth. It's in the quiet agreements made in rooms like this one. It's in the silence after the sentence, when the real deals begin."

"You know… this is a funny thing," he said, gesturing around. "A courtroom. A sacred temple of justice. And yet all I smell here is the burnt oil of capitalism."

Whittaker looked away. Nathaniel remained fixed, tense.

"Do you know what suffering is, Nathaniel?" Desmond asked suddenly. "It's not pain. Pain ends. Suffering... is knowing that your fate was decided not by gods or destiny, but by a man with a pen and a grudge."

He leaned back into the chair, still holding the gavel.

"And I? I was the dreamer. I was the one who wanted to lead. Not dominate. Lead. I studied this company when others were partying. I believed in legacy. You believed in conquest. And Alexander? He believed in survival."

His voice lowered to a near whisper.

"But dreams don't die. They decay. And in that decay... something darker grows."

The air thickened. Nathaniel's eyes narrowed.

Desmond placed the gavel down gently, precisely. He looked up, eyes blazing now.

"This isn't over. Not by a long shot. From ash rises the phoenix, and not all fire is visible."

"And in case you haven't noticed… the storm is only starting."

Before Nathaniel could respond, the courtroom door creaked open. The sound, though quiet, startled everyone. Nathaniel's security detail immediately moved, tense and alert, surrounding the area.

Desmond didn't flinch.

He turned his head slightly, a smirk curling at the edge of his lips. Still seated in the judge's chair, he exhaled softly and said with slow, deliberate joy:

"Hello, Aunty."

Every head turned.

And just like that, the air in the room shifted. The chessboard had been reset.

And Desmond... Desmond had just made his move.