Chapter 2

Walking out of the hospital gates, the blinding sunlight forced me to squint slightly.

Although the luxury penthouse was Chloe’s pre-marital property, my name had been officially added to the deed after our marriage. Before the legal title transfer could be finalized, there was a sufficient time gap for me to exploit.

I immediately contacted a loan shark who had spent years operating in the legal gray market.

“A three-hundred-square-meter penthouse downtown, market value over twenty million,” I said, slamming a copy of the property deed onto the desk, my tone absolute. “I only need eight million. I want the funds disbursed today.”

The broker stared at me, his eyes lighting up with greed. “Mr. Mercer, you’re a straightforward man, but the interest rates on a rush job like this…”

“Calculate the interest at your maximum allowable rate. I don’t care,” I interrupted coldly.

Chloe would be the one stuck paying it back anyway. Even if the interest rates skyrocketed into the stratosphere, it had absolutely nothing to do with me.

Aside from mortgaging the penthouse, I maxed out every single credit card under my name and squeezed the absolute maximum limits out of dozens of online lending platforms. In just a day and a half, I amassed nearly ten million in cash. Every cent of this staggering, ruinous debt was tied entirely to the penthouse and registered under Chloe’s name.

With the funding secured, I tracked down a top-tier security firm.

Taking advantage of the window where Chloe took Boyd to a high-end restaurant to celebrate their “newfound freedom,” I led the technicians straight into the penthouse.

“The master bedroom, living room, kitchen, hallways, and bathrooms—I want every blind spot covered,” I commanded, pointing to various corners of the apartment.

Under the guise of “inspecting the smart-home wiring system,” the workers installed over a dozen microscopic pinhole cameras equipped with independent backup power supplies. These cameras boasted extremely high resolution, night vision, and crystal-clear audio tracking.

I wanted to make sure that when the apocalypse dawned, I would have a 360-degree view to appreciate every angle of this vile couple’s desperate struggle.

Once the installation was finished, I drove straight out to the suburbs.

In my past life, I had heard rumors about an underground fallout bunker tucked away on a mountainside, originally built by a bankrupt billionaire. I used a massive stack of cash to open the broker’s tightly sealed mouth and successfully signed a ten-year lease contract.

Pushing open the heavy, titanium-alloy blast door of the bunker, the anxiety that had been weighing on my chest finally dissipated.

This place was a sanctuary tailor-made for the end of the world.

Spanning five hundred square meters, it featured an independent internal air filtration system, a deep groundwater well, a massive solar power array, and even a climate-controlled hydroponic greenhouse.

For the next forty-eight hours, I transformed into an tireless, consuming machine. I systematically cleared out the warehouses of three major supermarkets.

Fifty sacks of premium rice, thirty bags of flour, two hundred cases of various canned meats, one hundred cases of dehydrated vegetables, and fifty cases of high-calorie chocolates and survival rations. As for drinking water, I ordered five hundred barrels directly, hauling them into the bunker alongside ten heavy-duty water purification units.

Beyond food, medicine was the rarest, hardest currency in the apocalypse. I cleaned out five pharmacies, stockpiling antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, febrifuges, and painkillers, as well as various first-aid kits and surgical instruments.

Finally, I paid a visit to the black market, securing three military-grade compound crossbows, thousands of hardened steel bolts, two machetes, and a set of stab-proof tactical gear.

As the final shipment of supplies was moved into the bunker, the heavy blast doors slowly sealed shut.

I sat back on the sofa and exhaled a long, deep sigh of relief.

Right then, the giant monitoring screen on the wall flickered to life. On the display, Chloe and Boyd were walking into the penthouse, carrying armfuls of luxury shopping bags, looking completely on top of the world.

“Chloe, that sucker is finally gone! This place is entirely ours now!” Boyd laughed triumphantly, wrapping his arms around Chloe from behind without a care in the world.

Chloe leaned back into his embrace, greed dancing in her eyes. “That’s because he’s a fool. Once I liquidate this property, I’ll take you overseas to get a top-tier kidney transplant, and we can finally live the good life.”

Sitting in the safety chair of my fortress, I casually wiped down the cold, menacing edge of a machete.

Watching the despicable couple on the screen fantasize about their future, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

The countdown had begun. Only twelve hours left.