Infinite Rebate: I Get Richer Every Time I Spend

The leader was a mess.

His ruined knee was already swelling badly beneath him, the joint twisted at an ugly angle that made every small movement send fresh agony ripping through his leg.

He tried to speak, but only broken grunts came out. Tears had started running freely down his face, mixing with sweat as he struggled to stay conscious through the pain.

Lucas lowered himself onto one knee beside him.

One hand clamped hard around the man’s damaged leg, fingers digging in just enough to make the joint scream. With the other hand, he grabbed a fistful of the man’s hair and yanked his head up until their faces were close.

"I said," Lucas repeated, voice low and flat, "who sent you?"

The leader’s mouth opened, but only another pained sound escaped. His eyes were glassy, wild with panic. He looked ready to say anything ~ yet the words still wouldn’t come out clean.

Lucas’s patience thinned.

He slammed the man’s head sideways into the tile.

The impact landed with a hard, wet thud. The leader’s body jerked. A fresh groan tore out of him as blood began seeping from the corner of his mouth.

"I said who the fuck sent you."

Another slam.

Harder.

The second impact left the man dazed, blood smearing against the floor beneath his cheek. His breathing had turned ragged. Tears kept falling, no pride left in him at all ~ just pain and the desperate need to make it stop.

"M-Ma... Master..." he choked out, voice wrecked. "Tha... Tharok..."

Lucas yanked his head up again.

"What did you say?"

The leader forced the name out louder this time, almost sobbing it.

"Master Tharok! It was Master Tharok!"

The name settled in Lucas’s mind with quiet recognition. Familiar enough.

He stared down at the broken man for a second longer, then spoke with the same calm he had used all evening.

"Call your boss."

The leader blinked up at him, confused and terrified.

"Tell him to come down here right now," Lucas continued, "and save your ass."

He leaned in slightly, voice dropping even lower.

"If he doesn’t show up in the next thirty minutes... you’re done. Out of this world."

The leader’s face drained of whatever color it had left.

Lucas didn’t look away.

He simply waited for the man to reach for a phone with shaking hands, the humiliation of the moment heavier than the broken knee itself.

The leader’s hands were trembling so badly he almost dropped the phone while pulling it from his pocket.

Blood was still smeared across his face, thick enough that the screen refused to unlock with Face ID. He cursed under his breath, wiped his thumb clumsily against his shirt, and forced the device open with his passcode. Every second felt heavier under Lucas’s quiet countdown.

The call connected.

For a moment the leader could only breathe into the phone, the pain in his leg so sharp it made his vision blur. Blood still ran warm from the corner of his mouth. His fingers were slippery around the device.

"Master..." he managed, voice rough and broken.

Tharok answered immediately, already sounding irritated, like a man interrupted in the middle of something more important.

"Don’t come back to the warehouse. Stop at the~"

"Master... the mission failed."

The words hung in the air.

On the other end of the line, the background noise seemed to disappear. No reply came right away. Just a thick, dangerous silence that stretched long enough for the leader’s stomach to twist.

When Tharok finally spoke again, his voice was completely different ~ lower, tighter, stripped of its earlier impatience.

"What... did you just say?"

The leader’s throat worked hard around the answer. Every small shift of his body sent fresh fire through his ruined knee. He could feel Lucas’s eyes on him, patient and cold, waiting.

"We got caught," he forced out. "Someone was with her. He protected her. He... took us apart."

Another silence.

Heavier than the first.

Then Tharok’s breathing changed ~ sharper, controlled only by force.

"Say that again."

"What do you mean someone protected her?" Tharok’s voice rose fast, anger already boiling through the speaker. "Are you still there? How many of you are down?"

The leader tried to answer, but the words tangled in his throat. He ended up just nodding uselessly at the floor, as if the man on the other end of the line could see him.

"Talk!" Tharok barked.

"He’s... strong," the leader finally forced out. "He took us apart. I’m the only one still conscious enough to call."

For a moment there was only heavy breathing on the other end.

Then Tharok’s voice dropped into something colder and far more dangerous.

"I pity that bastard," he said slowly. "Whoever he is... he’s already dead. Dead as fuck."

The call cut off.

For a second Tharok just stared at the phone in his hand like he hadn’t heard right. Then the anger hit all at once.

"Shit."

He shoved the phone into his pocket and climbed into the front of the bus, nearly knocking one of his own men out of the way. The driver barely had time to look up before Tharok grabbed the wheel area and barked,

"Drive. Now."

The engine growled and the bus lurched forward hard enough to throw the men in the back against their seats. Someone cursed. Someone else grabbed the rail overhead as the vehicle swung into the road with zero patience for traffic.

Horns went off behind them.

Tharok didn’t care.

In the passenger seat, Tharok was losing his mind.

"Fucking bastard... fucking piece of shit..." he snarled, slamming his hand against the dashboard hard enough to make the whole front rattle. "I swear on my life, I’ll wipe out his whole fucking generation. His father, his mother, whoever the fuck raised him —~all of them."

The driver kept his eyes on the road and said nothing, both hands tight on the wheel as he pushed the bus faster through the streets. In the back, the remaining men had gone completely silent. They could hear every word. They could see the way Tharok’s face had twisted with pure rage.

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