The Billionaire Who Forgot How to Love
Chapter 3: The Weight of What He Knew
Spring rolled in slowly, like even the wind was cautious not to stir things too fast. The trees bloomed with soft defiance. Petals gathered like whispers on the concrete. The world was warming, but Elias? He was colder than ever.
Every morning, he woke before the sun. Trained his body. Read five newspapers. Logged into four separate identities. Moved money like a ghost. Disappeared before anyone could ask questions.
It wasn't ambition that drove him anymore.
It was memory.
He remembered the first time he became rich. The headlines. The interviews. The fake smiles. The woman on his arm who said forever and meant two years.
He remembered the meetings that turned into betrayals.
The boardroom that ousted him from his own company.
The day he stood alone at the funeral of a father he never visited enough.
He remembered everything.
And that was both his curse and his edge.
Liv was quieter now.
Her mother remained in the hospital. The news was a slow drip of hope and dread. Some days were better. Most weren't.
She didn't cry in front of Elias. But sometimes, when he walked her home, her hand would tighten around his like she was anchoring herself.
One night, under the lamplight, she said, "What if I'm not strong enough?"
He said, "Then I'll hold you up."
She didn't say thank you. Just rested her forehead on his shoulder and whispered, "Don't lie to me."
He didn't.
But he didn't tell her the truth either.
At night, he built.
The data firm deal exploded faster than expected. He reinvested the earnings into a blockchain security startup based in Hong Kong. Used a shell company out of Belize. Clean, untraceable, legal if you tilted your head sideways.
By April, he owned portions of four companies—none with his name attached.
His net worth in secret accounts passed $900,000.
He still lived on instant noodles and wore worn sneakers.
The only clue to his success? His silence.
And his eyes.
The kind that had seen too much, and yet never blinked.
Alana tried again.
A letter this time. Slid under his door. Written in handwriting he used to trace with his fingers.
"I know I broke something. I know I don't deserve anything. But if I could go back, I would've loved you better. I would've seen you. I'm sorry. For everything."
He didn't burn it.
But he folded it. Neat. Precise. And hid it in the back of his drawer.
Some wounds deserved to be preserved.
Not forgiven.
Not forgotten.
Just remembered.
One night, Liv came to him.
Her eyes were red. She didn't speak. Just crawled into his bed, curled up like a question mark, and said, "Just stay."
He stayed.
Didn't touch her.
Didn't pretend to know what she needed.
Sometimes, presence is the only answer.
And that night, he was hers. Just not in the way she would've asked for.
The next morning, the hospital called.
Her mother was gone.
The funeral was small. Cold. Quiet.
Liv stood like stone. No makeup. No tears. Just clenched hands and a stare that refused to fall apart.
Elias stood at the back.
He didn't speak.
Didn't intrude.
Just watched as the girl who always found beauty in silence now found silence in grief.
When the service ended, people offered flowers. Prayers. Platitudes.
Elias offered nothing.
But she walked straight to him.
Held his sleeve.
"I can't feel anything," she said.
"Then don't force it," he whispered.
Her chin trembled.
"Just... stay?"
He nodded.
And stayed.
The days that followed blurred.
Liv stopped attending class. Her phone barely worked. Food was tasteless. Time passed like fog.
Elias checked in without checking in.
He left groceries at her door.
Paid her rent anonymously.
Made sure she had what she didn't ask for.
Sometimes he stayed outside her apartment all night, just to make sure she didn't disappear.
No one saw him.
But she always knew he had been there.
Meanwhile, the market shifted.
His investments began to bloom like wildfire.
Tech journals whispered about a "phantom investor" reshaping the ecosystem from the shadows.
Startups closed multi-million dollar deals overnight.
The name behind the shell companies? Unknown.
But the influence was unmistakable.
And Elias felt it coming—the attention, the hunt, the unraveling.
He would need to go deeper underground soon.
But Liv's silence held him in place.
One night, she called.
"I'm alone," she said.
"You're not," he replied.
"Then why does it feel like I'm drowning in a room full of air?"
He came without hesitation.
No words. Just quiet music on her old record player. Two mugs of tea. Her head on his chest. His heartbeat steady enough for both of them.
"I used to think love meant saving someone," she said.
He stroked her hair once. "Sometimes it just means staying."
But staying came at a cost.
He missed a virtual call with a major investor. Lost out on a deal that would've added six zeroes to his portfolio.
His offshore network began asking questions.
Too many eyes. Too many patterns emerging.
He needed to move.
Change aliases. Disappear again.
But every time he packed his laptop, he found himself staring at Liv's photo.
And unpacked it again.
Then came the email.
Subject: I Know Who You Are
No sender name. No threat.
Just a screenshot.
One of his fake identities. The Belize registration. The Hong Kong server.
Whoever it was, they were good.
Too good.
Elias stared at the screen for a long time.
Then deleted everything.
Backed up everything.
Then locked himself in his dorm for three days and didn't sleep.
The past wasn't just haunting him anymore.
It was hunting him.
He saw Alana that weekend.
She looked different. Older. Like someone who finally realized love doesn't wait forever.
She walked up to him on campus.
"You look tired," she said.
"I am."
"You look lonely."
"I'm not."
"Liar," she whispered.
They stood in silence.
Then she said, "I think I finally understand what I did to you."
He didn't reply.
"I ruined the only version of love that ever felt like home."
He looked away. "You didn't ruin it. You sold it."
Her face cracked.
Then she said the thing that haunted him most.
"And you still look at me like you're waiting for me to fix it."
He walked away.
But she wasn't wrong.
The hacker didn't message again.
But that silence was louder than a scream.
Elias checked every trace. Monitored every connection. Scrubbed logs, shut down proxies, rerouted funds. It was like trying to erase a shadow from a wall. You could clean the paint, but the outline lingered.
And whoever this person was—they hadn't outed him. Not yet. That meant they wanted something.
He just didn't know what.
Liv started showing up again. Quietly. Not the version of herself from before—bright, curious, full of quiet poetry—but something rawer. Sharper.
"I don't want people to pity me," she said one day in the library.
"They don't," Elias replied.
"Yes, they do. And I hate it. I'd rather they hated me."
He looked at her. "I don't pity you."
"Then what do you feel when you look at me?"
He hesitated.
"Like I'm afraid to breathe too loud. Afraid I'll make it worse."
She nodded. Not hurt. Not reassured. Just understood.
"That's fair," she whispered. "It's already worse."
The hacker struck again.
This time, they didn't hide.
A message appeared on his private dev laptop. Direct. Plain text. No encryption.
"We should talk. Before I decide to end your quiet little world."
Attached: a photo of Elias sitting with Liv on the library steps. Taken from behind. The timestamp was from two days ago.
His blood turned to ice.
Someone was close.
Too close.
He traced the source. It bounced through multiple locations. Vietnam. Ireland. Back to his campus.
That was the clue.
This wasn't some global cyber hunter.
It was someone here.
Someone watching him up close.
And that made it personal.
He debated telling Liv.
But what would he say?
"Someone's stalking me because I'm secretly a hidden billionaire with a fake identity and a past life?"
She wouldn't run.
That's what scared him.
He didn't want her to stay out of loyalty.
He wanted her to stay because she chose him. Not because she was too broken to leave.
So he said nothing.
Alana sent one last message.
No letter. No confrontation.
Just a voice note.
"I've been writing songs again. About you. About us. I don't think I'll ever stop writing about you. Even if you never listen. Even if you already forgot me. I won't forget you. You were my biggest mistake and the love of my life."
He deleted it.
But his hands shook.
Because once, he would've given anything to hear those words.
Now, they were just noise.
Too late.
Too far gone.
Final exams loomed. Campus buzzed with stress and caffeine and future plans.
Elias floated through it like fog. No panic. No celebration.
He knew where this was headed.
A year from now, he'd be worth tens of millions.
Two years? A hundred.
He didn't care.
Not unless she was in the picture.
And right now, Liv was slipping from it.
Slowly.
Quietly.
The way grief steals people. Not all at once—but piece by piece.
He brought her paint. Canvases. Brushes.
She looked at them like they were ghosts.
"I haven't painted since she died."
"You don't have to start today."
She looked up. "Why are you so good to me?"
He almost said, Because I wasn't last time.
Instead: "Because you remind me what it means to be human."
She closed her eyes. Just for a moment.
And then, without a word, started painting.
He set the meeting.
Anonymous IP. Encrypted chat room. Midnight.
The hacker showed up as "Seraphim."
Seraphim: You're cautious. Smart. That's good.
Elias: What do you want?
Seraphim: What makes you think I want anything?
Elias: Because if this was about ego, you would've exposed me by now.
A pause.
Seraphim: Fair. I want access.
Elias: To what?
Seraphim: You. Your network. The future you're building. Let me in, or I burn it down.
Elias stared at the screen.
The nerve. The gall. The precision.
Elias: Why?
Seraphim: Because I'm not the only one who knows.
And then they were gone.
He barely slept that night.
Instead, he traced. And traced. And traced.
Until the trail circled back to something that made his stomach turn.
The hacker was using campus servers.
More than that—they had physical access.
They were a student.
And the IP? One he recognized.
A tech assistant in the computer science lab.
Someone who'd smiled at him last week.
He confronted him the next day.
Didn't raise his voice. Didn't show emotion.
Just sat beside the guy in the lab, leaned in, and said, "You think you're clever."
The guy—Jordan—froze.
"I don't know what you—"
"I liked the photo. The one of me and the girl. It was almost artistic."
Jordan's face drained of color.
"I didn't tell anyone," he whispered.
"But you would have," Elias said. "If I didn't come."
"I just wanted to know who you were. You're not like the others."
"No," Elias said. "I'm worse."
And he stood. Walked away. Let the weight of fear do the rest.
That night, he withdrew from every visible class record. Paid cash to erase his student record from the next semester's roster. Moved his accounts. Burned two aliases.
He was done playing quiet.
If they wanted war, he'd end it before it started.
But the damage had already leaked into something worse.
Liv.
She saw him leaving the lab. Saw his expression.
And she asked, simply, "What are you running from now?"
He didn't answer.
So she followed him.
Out the door. Across campus. Into the shadows near the field where no one went at night.
And she stood there.
Waiting.
Until he turned and finally looked at her.
"I'm tired," he said.
"Of what?"
"Everything. Lying. Building. Surviving."
She took a step forward. "Then stop."
"I can't."
"You can."
He laughed. Bitter. "If I stop, it all falls apart."
She nodded. "So you'd rather let yourself fall apart instead?"
"I already did," he whispered.
And for the first time in months—he cried.
Quiet. Harsh. No noise. Just tears.
And Liv didn't touch him.
She just stood there.
Crying, too.
Because some truths don't need explaining.
They just need witnessing.
Later that night, Liv knocked on his door.
Not with urgency.
With resolve.
He opened it, and she stood there—not broken, not whole—just real.
"Whatever this is," she said, "you don't have to carry it alone."
He didn't reply.
Because how do you explain a life you weren't supposed to get a second chance at?
How do you admit you know how the next five years play out for almost everyone you meet?
He stepped aside. Let her in.
She walked in like she'd already made her choice.
No fear.
Only truth.
They sat across from each other on the floor. No music. No distractions. Just air and eyes.
He took a breath. Let it out.
"I'm not who you think I am."
She tilted her head. "Then who are you?"
"I'm someone who's been here before."
She blinked. "What does that mean?"
He looked down. Then back up.
"It means this isn't my first life."
Liv didn't laugh.
Didn't question.
Just listened.
And so he told her.
Not everything.
But enough.
The company he lost. The love that ruined him. The success that became a prison. The old woman in the alley. The second chance.
Her eyes filled slowly. Not with disbelief.
But with something deeper.
Recognition.
"That's why you always know," she whispered.
He nodded.
"I don't know how. Or why. But I remember everything. And I came back... different."
"Broken?"
"Prepared."
She reached out.
Held his hand.
"Then maybe I'm not the only one who lost everything."
He squeezed her hand.
"Maybe we both came back to find something we didn't know we needed."
Outside, the rain started again.
Soft.
Like forgiveness.
He didn't sleep that night.
But he didn't stay awake out of fear.
For the first time in this life, he wasn't hiding.
He was healing.
And in the dark, Liv stayed beside him. Not as a fix.
But as a witness.
To who he was.
And who he might still become.