"Karen, I can drop you off at the apartment right now if you want to rest for a bit," I suggest, noticing Karen's exhausted face.
"If you don't mind," she accepts awkwardly.
"Sure, let's go then," I say, standing up. "Mr. Nelson, it was a pleasure meeting you," I add with a smile as I extended my hand.
"No, the pleasure is ours, Mr. Watson. It is not every day that you get to meet a billionaire. Maybe next time you can consider our firm for your own needs in the future," Foggy says with a smile as he shakes my hand, "Sure" I reply.
"It was a pleasure meeting you too, Mr. Murdock," I say, extending my hand to him.
"Matt, he is extending his hand in front of you," Foggy whispers from the side.
"Oh, sorry," Matt says embarrassedly as he extends his own hand, which I catch and give a polite shake. "Mr. Watson, I have a question that is eating me up, if you don't mind me asking," he says, holding my hand.
"Sure, go ahead," I reply with a smile.
"How did you know about our firm?" he asks curiously, his head slightly down, his red spectacles reflecting my face in one of the glasses.
"We have a mutual friend, Mr. Murdock—Skye. You both are from the same place, Saint Agnes Orphanage," I respond with a simple smile.
"Oh, Skye," Matt exclaims in surprise, taking back his hand. "I haven't heard that name in years... Yeah, there was this little girl who had made up that name for herself in the orphanage. It is surprising that she still remembers me; I had hardly talked with her, and the last I heard, she was adopted by some family when she was very young," Matt recalls.
"Well, we have this Watson Aid Network, and when I first established it, Skye had recommended the name of her senior at the orphanage who had suffered from an unfortunate accident," I explain and continue, "But I was surprised to find that her senior was studying law at Columbia University with a scholarship. So, you can say that I have kept my eyes on you since then, no pun intended," I reply with a chuckle.
"Well, that explains everything. I should maybe get in touch with Skye, thank her for still remembering me," Matt replies with a smile of his own as my face is reflected in both of his red glasses.
"Yes, she will definitely like that. In fact, I will tell her that you wanted to get in touch with her. She will surely come here to meet her senior when she has time," I say simply, and Matt nods his head in agreement.
I am not sure if he has figured out the small lie that I had just told, but I didn't mind either way.
I gave both of them the address of the apartment where Karen would be staying and then take the three ladies away in my car.
Matt and Foggy came down to see us off and Foggy expresses his surprise. "He seems like a genuinely nice guy... Although I still can't believe that we just met a billionaire," he sighs as he watches the red Tesla drive away.
"Me too, Foggy, me too," Matt agrees, his brows knitted as he faces the direction of the moving car.
"Hey, don't be so serious. Even if we have two tough cases as our first, at least we are getting paid for one of them. And it is freaking Lucas Watson! I don't think he will be stingy with money. Who knows, we might even see some bonuses," Foggy says with a happy smile, clapping Matt on the shoulder. "Let's go celebrate tonight, drinks on me!"
"I am busy tonight," Matt replies simply.
"Oh, a date? Tell me about her. Does she look as good as that Karen?" Foggy asks curiously, "I know that you have a sixth sense when it comes to good looking women. I don't know how but you always choose the prettiest girl in the room, even though you are blind!" He says with mirth.
Matt just ignores him and walks ahead.
"Hey, tell me!" Foggy follows after his blind friend.
Inside the Tesla, I notice that Karen, Cassie, and Maggie were staying quiet, none taking the initiative to talk.
To break the tension and realising that it was already lunchtime, I propose taking them out for lunch. Karen protests for a bit, but when I mention she probably hasn't eaten since the previous night, Cassie and Maggie quickly join in persuading her.
I take them to a private villa, a high-class restaurant catering to just a select few clientele. There, I already have a permanent private room reserved for myself. And that is how the two women and a girl got to experience fine dining today.
The food was exquisite, allowing them to taste a variety of dishes. When Maggie asked for the prices of the dishes, I simply laughed it off. After all, if they knew the prices, they might not enjoy the food as care-freely.
As you were eating, Cassie kept asking Karen questions about her earlier outburst. In the end, Karen relents and tells them a watered-down version of her problems. Even that made the mother-daughter pair emotional. Cassie then shares her own problems with Karen, eliciting a similar sympathy from Karen.
After that lunch, they were definitely closer to each other. Cassie learns that Karen had no clothes or money on her, so she wanted to go shopping. I agreed and took them to a mall.
I also instructed Cassie, Maggie, and Karen that they could buy anything they wanted. Cassie was happy and excited, while Maggie and Karen both disagreed with me paying.
I whisper into Maggie's ear, reminding her that after that night she was mine now. She was shy and denied my statement, but still agreed to my offer of paying for her things.
And for the other woman, I just told Karen that it was fine if she didn't want me to her buy stuff, as if she didn't choose it herself, then Cassie would choose clothes for her, and she would definitely make her whole wardrobe pink then.
Karen nods defeatedly and we ended up shopping for hours. They still didn't buy much until the end, mostly some daily necessities for Karen and 2-3 pairs of new clothes for each of them.
At the checkout, I glanced at the bill with disappointment—it was an amount I earned in minutes. When Cassie asked why I was shaking my head, I told her the same and they collectively gave me odd looks, not believing me in the slightest.
Afterwards, we all head to the food court for dinner as Cassie wanted to eat ice cream. We enjoyed burgers, fries, and ice cream together, and by the time we left the mall at 8 pm, exhaustion had set in, with Cassie falling asleep in the car.
I dropped Karen off first at her new apartment. I hadn't fully disclosed that I owned the entire building not just an apartment, but since there were other tenants and the top floor was vacant, it technically did not count as a lie.
I helped her move her belongings into the fully furnished apartment, ensuring she felt settled and secure in her new environment.
"Thank you, Luke," she says, hugging me tight and giving me a heartfelt smile. "Today was both my worst day and my best day. If I hadn't met you, I would have never imagined you were so down to earth and... good," she compliments with a happy expression.
"Well, we are friends now, so get used to it," I say with a smirk.
"Who would believe when I tell them that my first friend in this big city is the Billionaire Lucas Watson?" she chuckles.
"They will believe when you show them this," I respond, giving her a card with a limit of just a grand on it.
"No, this is too much," she protests, pushing it back.
After some back and forth, she accepts the card hesitantly when I tell her that this card costs way less than the dishes they had this afternoon.
"Well, if I had not known any better, a girl might start thinking that you are... interested in her," she says, looking at me shyly.
"Well, the girl would be correct then," I reply with a smile, meeting her gaze.
"Luke... r-right now, I have too m-" Karen starts hesitatingly, looking away from my eyes.
I take a step closer to her and kiss her on the cheek. "I know," I say simply. "I will wait for you then, Karen," I say with a charming smile as I turn around and leave.
Karen looks at Luke's retreating figure with a red face, holding the card in her hand with a helpless sigh.
I leave the apartment and drive Maggie and Cassie to Aunt Cass's house. Unfortunately, Aunt Cass isn't home yet; she is probably still closing her coffee shop.
They both hug me tightly while thanking me, with both the mother and daughter whispering how they will meet me alone soon to thank me properly.
Internally, I have a wicked grin on but outwardly I maintain a polite smile as I leave the house.
I then drive towards Hell's Kitchen again.
"D.A.I.S.Y., where is Matt right now?" I ask aloud while driving.
I already knew some bits about Karen's story, which was quite similar to her story in the Daredevil series of my previous world, but she was not present on my Index. So whatever she said, I had to take at face value as I had no surveillance on her.
This was because, I had to reduce the load on D.A.I.S.Y. due to the extensive number of individuals on the Index and the stringent monitoring of high-priority figures.
Monitoring all this data constantly poses a storage challenge, so I had to remove many inconsequential characters like Karen and Foggy from the list. As they are just Matt's friends, so they shouldn't warrant continuous surveillance.
Maybe I should finish my plans of updating D.A.I.S.Y., as after that is done, she will be able to handle much more data quite easily.
Matt, however, was a different story. I had liked his character a lot in my last life and I still do, so he is very high up in my Index.
"He is getting out of the church right now" D.A.I.S.Y. shows me a video inside the car of Matt leaving a church.
Looking at the quality of video and the overhead view, I deduced that the Swarm must be operational now.
As the car went into Auto drive mode, with D.A.I.S.Y. taking control, I check the status of all the 100 Micro Satellites on my phone. As I review the data, I look up and see Matt climbing a pipe in a dark alley and going to the roof. He then proceeds to remove his clothes, revealing black clothes underneath, and puts on a bandana.
"Well, let's go and have a meet with the Devil then," I say with a smirk as my car reaches Hell's Kitchen.
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Vigilante Run: Things chosen by the chat that Lucas will have:
Metal Mask
His Bracelet (Personal Shield Generator)
Metal batons
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