Richest Man: It All Started With My Rebate System-Chapter 18: Appointment Confirmation

"Damn! This game really deserves all the hype it got, but it is genuinely hard to play," Steven said, dropping the controller onto the cushion beside him after two straight hours.

He had made steady progress overall, moving through the early sections with growing confidence. But one particular enemy had stopped him cold — a blue, oversized creature with a disproportionately large head that looked like some kind of dwarf that had been scaled up by someone with poor judgment and no sense of fairness.

He had attempted it at least six times. Six times, the result had been the same.

"I’m going to defeat you," he said to the paused screen.

He set the controller on the coffee table and turned to his laptop. An email notification had come in while he was playing, and that was the actual reason he had stopped. He had caught the pop-up at the corner of his eye mid-fight, and the timing had not helped his focus.

He unlocked the laptop and opened the email app. It loaded quickly, and he saw immediately that it was a reply to the message he had sent earlier that morning.

He leaned forward and started reading.

The reply was professional and thorough. It opened with a confirmation that a preliminary review of his account had shown he met the eligibility requirements for the Private Client tier, and that the bank would be happy to schedule a meeting with one of their Private Bankers to walk him through the onboarding process, outline the services available, and address any questions he had.

The second section was the part he paid closer attention to. In order to help them prepare for the meeting, they asked that he have the following ready ahead of his appointment: a valid government-issued photo ID, proof of his current address dated within the last ninety days, his existing Chase account details, and a brief outline of his financial goals — whether that was wealth growth, asset protection, diversification, or some combination of all three.

The email noted that having this prepared in advance would allow his assigned banker to tailor the conversation to his specific situation from the start rather than spending the first half of the meeting gathering background.

Steven read through it a second time, slowly, making sure he hadn’t missed anything in the first pass. And he hadn’t.

He pulled the laptop onto his knees and started composing his reply.

For the financial goals section, his answer was straightforward — a combination of all three. Wealth growth, asset protection, and diversification. He wasn’t in a position to prioritise one over the others, and honestly, he didn’t need to. He had the balance to pursue all of them at once.

For the meeting date and time, he typed in the same day. Today.

He considered that for a moment before confirming it. He was free. He had nothing on his schedule except a game that was currently on pause and a monster he had died to six times. The meeting was more important than both, and there was no good reason to push it to tomorrow when today was available. Letting urgency collect around things that could be handled immediately had been a habit from his old life, one born entirely from circumstance and not from any actual principle. That circumstance no longer applied.

He checked the email once more for spelling errors, found none, and sent it.

Then he leaned back, set the laptop aside, and looked at the ceiling for a moment.

That was the second time today he had sent an email to an institution that, forty-eight hours ago, would not have had any particular reason to treat him as anything other than a standard account holder. Now they were confirming Private Client eligibility within hours of being contacted. The turnaround was not lost on him.

Money really does open doors before you even knock, he thought quietly.

He picked the controller back up, glancing at the paused screen. He had promised himself he would not let gaming eat into the things that mattered, and he had meant it. But he had time. The reply, if it came, would take at least thirty minutes. He might as well use them.

He switched games.

It was finally time to try the one he had been most curious about since downloading it. He navigated to it in the library, selected it, and watched the loading screen give way to the title.

The iconic logo filled the screen — bold, cinematic, with the eye-catching green of the Roman numeral five standing out against the background like it was daring someone to look away.

He settled into the sofa cushions and let it run.

***

Forty-five minutes later, his laptop chimed.

He paused the game immediately and pulled the laptop across the cushion toward him. He clicked on the notification and the email expanded.

It was a confirmation, informing him that his appointment was set for 3 PM that afternoon, at their Private Banking office in Louisiana.

The email instructed him to check in at the front desk upon arrival, where he would be escorted to his meeting room. It also noted that if he had any specific topics or requests he wanted them to prepare for in advance, he was welcome to include them in his response.

Steven checked the time. It was just past quarter to two.

He had a little over an hour, which was more than enough. The drive from River Oaks to Louisiana during light midday traffic would take fifteen minutes at most. He had time. What he did not have was anything appropriate to wear.

He closed the laptop and sat with that problem for a moment.

He owned plenty of new clothes now. He had bought a full selection two days ago — good quality, well fitted, nothing to be embarrassed by. But they were casual. T-shirts, trousers, hoodies and the rest. Fine for a superstore run or a walk through the city. Not fine for the environment he was about to step into.

A private banking office was not a casual environment. He knew that without having to think about it. The people who worked there wore suits. The people who came in as clients wore suits, or at minimum, something that communicated that they understood the register of the room they were walking into.

There was a saying his mother had used occasionally, pulling it out in moments when she was dressing him for something that mattered. The way you dress is the way you will be addressed.

He had not thought about it in years. It came back to him clearly now, sharpened slightly by the Intelligence upgrade.

She had been right, as she usually was.

This was his first major formal appointment. He had no interest in walking in looking like he had come from somewhere else and hadn’t had time to change. He wanted to walk in looking like someone who belonged there, not because he needed to prove it, but because the meeting would go better if the banker across the table wasn’t spending the first ten minutes recalibrating their expectations.

He stood up from the sofa, understanding what he needs to do.

Formal clothes. That was the priority. He had the time, he had the money, and there was nothing stopping him from walking into a decent store and solving this in the next thirty minutes.

He picked up his phone, key card, and car key from the side table, checked that he had everything, and walked to the door.

The hallway was quiet as he stepped out. He pressed the key card against the reader, heard the lock engage behind him, and made his way to the elevator.