So this was it. I accepted the deal, and not even a week later, someone posted my bail. But since I’d been a juvenile the last time I got caught, I’d never actually been introduced to the adult bail system.
Apparently, it isn’t as simple as just handing over the cash. I had to go through booking and a bail hearing. I had to convince a judge to let me out on bond, and then wait through hours of jail processing. It was a whole-ass headache.
But right before I got out of the joint for good and grabbed my things, I walked back to say goodbye to Mujahid.
“Well, this is it, huh?” Mujahid said, looking up from his bunk. “Finally walking out of this prison, and hopefully never coming back.”
He stepped forward and pulled me into a tight hug.
“May Allah be with you, Brother Rico,” he murmured. “I hope this is the last time I ever have to see you in a place like this. Even though you still have your court date.”
I hugged him back, holding on for a second.
“You know...” I whispered, my voice getting a little thick. “You’re the closest thing I’ve had to a father in a very long time. Sure, there were the Walkers, but they were more like grandparents than anything.”
Mujahid smiled, patting my back as we pulled away. “Well, hopefully that means I get a holiday card and some commissary every now and then?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re goddamn right. With the money I’m going to be pushing, you’re gonna be fatter than a bitch.”
“I’ll hold you to it,” he laughed. “Love you, brother.”
“Pause.”
He rolled his eyes. “Why you always gotta ruin a moment with some gay shit?”
“Ah, I’m just fucking with you,” I grinned. “I love you, too.”
I grabbed my mesh bag of civilian clothes and started walking toward the front. On my way out of the block, I dapped up Pedro.
“See you soon, Rico,” Pedro said, leaning against the gate. “Just know the world changed a lot since you were in here.”
“I believe you,” I said, looking out at the sun shining through the bulletproof glass of the lobby. “I’ll just have to do what humans do and adapt. I’ll see you soon, though.”
I walked through the final set of heavy steel doors and stepped out into the Florida sun. I stopped on the concrete sidewalk, closing my eyes, and took a deep breath of that sweet, free air.
But the second I exhaled, reality hit me like a slap to the face.
Where the fuck was I supposed to go? I’d lost my apartment from being locked up so damn long. I didn’t have a job, and to top it all off, I had a pending first-degree murder charge hanging over my head. Trying to get hired for a legal job right now was basically impossible.
But before I could dwell on it too much, a sleek black sedan pulled up to the curb. One of Pedro’s guys was behind the wheel. He rolled down the window and gestured for me to get in.
We drove to the other side of town, pulling up to a house in a surprisingly decent neighborhood. It was a quiet, completely unremarkable house from the outside. But this was the spot. This was the safehouse where I was going to live and run my dark-web cocaine operations.
The guy unlocked the front door, let me inside, and handed me a cheap, burner flip-phone.
“Keep this on you,” he said, before turning and leaving me alone in the quiet house.
I barely had time to look around before the burner started vibrating in my palm. I flipped it open.
“Yo,” I said.
“Rico,” Pedro’s voice came crackling through the receiver. “You make it out clean?”
I couldn’t help but grin, recognizing the grainy, low-quality audio. “Yeah, I’m out. But bro, are you seriously calling me from a booty phone right now?”
There was a long, awkward pause on the other end of the line. I could hear him trying to hold back a laugh, even though he tried to sound offended.
“Man, shut the fuck up,” Pedro muttered. “It’s a secure line. Don’t worry about where it came from.”
“My fault, don,” I joked, leaning against the kitchen counter. “Just don’t cut off my head on camera. We already have enough cartel gore videos on the internet as is.”
Pedro laughed on the other end of the line.
“Now, here's all you have to do,” Pedro explained. “You set up the shop on the darknet and write the delivery addresses down in a physical notebook. Every day at around four in the afternoon, my boys are going to swing by your place, pick up the notebook, and run the deliveries. None of the actual product is going to be kept at your house. It’s stored somewhere else entirely, so the risk of you getting caught with physical drugs is basically zero.”
“So I’m basically like a dark-web secretary?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “Just filling out appointments and passing them off? I thought I was going to get my hands dirty or something.”
“Nah, that’s what we got lackeys for,” Pedro said. “The smart guys stay on top. And since you showed me you’re smart, I don’t need you getting locked up again—especially not with restricted computer privileges. I still like playing
Halo
with you.”
“
Bet, bet,” I said, spinning the burner phone in my hand. “So... I know this is a bit much, but can I get a three-hundred-thousand-dollar advance?”
The line went quiet for a second.
“Damn!” Pedro barked, letting out a sharp whistle. “That’s ballsy, Rico. Asking a cartel boss for an advance like that? Even if I am your boy.”
“I know it’s a lot to ask,” I said, my voice getting serious. “But I need to do something important. And I can’t do it while I’m broke.”
“Mmm, I don’t know,” Pedro muttered. “You’re kind of yanking my balls just a little bit here.”
“Please?”
Pedro sighed over the grainy line. “Okay. I’ll give it to you. You haven’t given me a reason not to trust you, plus it’ll be a good test.”
“Thanks, gang,” I said.
Well, now this was fucking perfect. I knew it was kind of dumb to ask for this much money upfront, knowing goddamn well it was just putting me into deeper debt before I’d even started pushing a single brick. But on the bright side, this money wasn’t even for me. Well, at least not all of it. I had some major financial moves to make with this cash, but first things first: I had to inspect my new headquarters. And when I say “house,” I put a big emphasis on the word. This was basically just a loaned workplace that I happened to eat, sleep, and shit in.
The place was fully furnished with decent stuff. Pedro even remembered I was a gamer, so he had some cool-ass anime figures and posters decorated around the house, which was a nice bonus. He’d stocked my fridge with food, too, which was a major dub. But the PC he wanted me to work on? That shit was so fucking basic. It was supposed to be a work computer, but it was nowhere near compatible with what I was trying to do, especially with all the digital surveillance bullshit going on in 2026.
I’m talking about those damn Flock cameras on every street corner, and Congress passing laws trying to force you to verify your government ID just to log onto a computer. They claim it’s “to ensure the safety of our kids.” But since when do children have government IDs? In high school, the only ID you get is a student ID. It’s just an excuse to force adults to scan their face and papers into the system.
And don’t even get me started on how Windows is selling us out to the feds. They literally put an AI tracker on the OS—Windows Recall—that takes constant screenshots of your screen and logs every single website you visit. Great. Now my own computer is trying to rat me out to the feds while I’m trying to handle business, or even just beat my dick in peace. Technology in 2026 is some crazy, dystopian shit, and it’s only gotten worse over the years.
But let me stop bitching. The very first thing I did with my three-hundred-thousand-dollar advance was buy a top-tier computer setup with serious performance specs.
My main choice of machine is probably going to shock a lot of you. I bought a Librem 14 laptop.
Why the hell are you using a laptop instead of a desktop PC?
the voice in my head asked.
Because if I have to move, a laptop makes me incredibly hard to locate. I’m not going to sit in one place and make it easy for them just in case some agency decides to get a no-knock warrant ready for me. The specs on the Librem 14 are solid: a 14″ matte 1920×1080 display, an Intel Core i7 10710U CPU with six cores and twelve threads, up to 64GB of RAM, Intel UHD Graphics 620, and two NVMe-capable M.2 slots.
It doesn’t run on Windows. In fact, it runs on PureOS for maximum privacy. When I’m dealing with business, I boot into Tails OS from a secure USB. I use the Tor Browser. I pair it with DuckDuckGo and open-source, encrypted email services to keep my traffic as hidden as possible. Running my darknet store through a virtual machine inside an encrypted OS makes me practically untraceable. And I’m never in the same physical spot when I do it.
Whenever I’m handling business, I stay strapped.
Of course, I couldn’t
only
use this machine for business. I still planned to play hella games on it, so I spent some of the advance buying top-tier external gear to turn this thing into a gaming beast. I hooked up an external GPU setup to bypass the weak integrated graphics, along with massive internal and external solid-state storage.
All together, the upgrades cost me about ten grand. When I bought the laptop itself, I got the three-year warranty for $196 and paid an extra $249 for Purism’s Anti-Interdiction service to make sure the feds didn’t tamper with the hardware during shipping. The laptop package itself came out to $2,217. The rest of the cash went toward the eGPU and extra storage.
To keep my digital footprint looking normal, I still use Google and other standard browsers on a separate, cheap laptop for everyday civilian stuff. If an IP address only transmits heavily encrypted, footprint-free darknet traffic, it immediately looks suspicious to any ISP or federal node analyzing metadata. You have to blend in with the noise.
Because when you’re running a darknet empire, a perfectly clean footprint is the most suspicious footprint of all.
After about three weeks of running the darknet operation, I’d made some real, serious progress. Sure, I probably could have made decent money from just scamming people, but drug addicts are different. When people find a reliable plug who doesn’t cut his product, they always come back to buy more. In just three weeks, I’d already made back that entire three-hundred-thousand-dollar advance Pedro gave me, and I’d almost doubled it.
My legal freelance programming was bringing in steady checks on the side, too. But since my bank accounts were starting to look ridiculously healthy, my mindset started to shift.
I still drained scammer call centers, but now, whenever I identified a victim who had been scammed, I was inclined to give them all of their money back. If I couldn’t get the full amount out of the scammers' accounts, I’d actually pay the difference out of my own pocket. I was actively trying to clear some of the bad karma I’d built up over the years. It was a step toward healing.
After I got done running my daily scripts and clearing my queue, I sat back in my chair.
A sudden thought hit me.
I was out on bond. I was officially a free man waiting for trial, which meant I could finally go meet my mom. She had no idea I was getting out of jail, so showing up at her door would be the ultimate surprise.
But then, a cold truth froze me solid.
Holy shit.
I never asked her where she lived.
When we were sitting in that visiting room, my bail was set at a cool million dollars. I never in a million years expected some cartel prince to slide through and post my bond, so I figured my black ass was going to be stuck behind bars until my trial date. I didn’t think to ask for her address because I didn’t think I’d ever need it.
I stared at my Librem 14 laptop, the screen reflecting my blank expression. I had her full government name, but in 2026, people don’t just leave their addresses lying around in the open.
I cracked my knuckles. I booted up my OSINT tools in a secure terminal, ready to put my grey-hat skills to work and hunt down my own mother.