Apocalypse Rebirth: Making Billions With My Fortune-Telling Skill

​The car tore down the empty roads, eventually merging onto the main highway that led back toward the Reed estate.

April didn’t reply to his words. She turned her face back toward the passenger window, staring blankly at the blur of the city lights flashing across the glass.

She didn’t pull out her phone to check her resource loops on Winecraft, and she didn’t initiate a conversation either.

For a long time, she just sat in the heavy silence of the cabin, completely still.

​As the car cruised along the quiet highway, April’s gaze remained fixed on the glass, but the lingering exhaustion in her voice broke the quiet as she finally decided to speak.

​”Nat,” she spoke up softly.

​Her tone carried a strange, uncharacteristic vulnerability—a rare, slightly melodramatic edge that completely defied her usual analytical cadence.

​Nat’s eyes widened slightly in surprise, his grip loosening on the steering wheel as he glanced over at her. He had never heard her voice sound so fragile, so humanly burdened except for that night when she was so drunk she started blurting out pretty much everything.

​”There is a traitor among your men,” April murmured, her words cutting through the hum of the tires with absolute clarity. ”Someone high enough to command the rest of your inner circle to completely evacuate your premises.”

​The amusement instantly drained from Nat’s face. His wild eyes sharpened, a dark, dangerous spark flaring to life beneath his brow. ”Oh, yeah? I always love to hear about a traitor. Tell me who needs their neck snapped, sweetheart.”

​”No, Nat, you aren’t understanding the scope of this,” April said, finally turning her head away from the window to look at him, her expression deadpan but carrying an immense, suffocating weight. ”This has to be someone who holds enough command to order all your security guards to leave the premises. Remember when I told you at the restaurant that you almost died today?”

​Nat kept his eyes on the road, but his jaw clenched tightly.

​”Someone instructed your entire security detail to abandon the mansion so that you were completely alone,” April explained, her eyes tracking his expression. ”No alarm was raised when the Scorpion Gang crossed your perimeter. They entered your private space, they ambushed you, they shot at you. You didn’t die from their bullets, Nat. You survived the initial impact... but you died of a hemorrhage. You were bleeding out alone on the floor, and no one came to help you. You bled to death.”

​She leaned slightly forward, her stare unblinking. ”That is not something funny. That is your actual life, flashing before your eyes in a timeline you completely failed to see coming. If I hadn’t seen it...”

​Nat listened to her serious, intense monologue, his face completely blank for a split second.

Then, a sharp, unhinged grin split his features, his chest shaking with a low, raspy chuckle. He didn’t look afraid, and he didn’t care about the terrifying truth of his own lonely demise on a bathroom floor.

The concept of his own mortality meant absolutely nothing to his volatile neural system.

​”I don’t give that much of a shit about life,” Nat growled, his voice dropping into a deep, manic purr as he tapped his fingers against the leather steering wheel. ”But I do give a massive shit about traitors. Tell me, sweetheart... who’s the rat? Who was it that you saw in this vision of yours?”

​April looked at him, letting out a long, thoroughly defeated sigh as her shoulders slumped slightly against the leather seat.

​He wasn’t even listening to the warning. He wasn’t even concerned about the fact that his pulse had almost stopped existing in this timeline.

He didn’t want to adjust his security protocols or analyze the flaw in his defense; he just wanted a target name so he could grab his black metal bat and paint the floorboards red.

This man didn’t just operate in danger—he actively lived and thrived for the thrill of the chaos. She knew that before, but she knew it with a new sense of clarity now.

​”You are entirely impossible,” April muttered flatly, turning her head back toward the window as the gates of the Reed estate finally appeared in the distance.

The heavy tires of the G-Wagon crunched over the gravel driveway, finally coming to a smooth stop in the courtyard.

​April reached out to pop her seatbelt and open the door, ready to leave the suffocating tension of the cabin behind, but the electronic locks clicked firmly into place.

Nat didn’t put the car in park. Instead, he draped one tattooed arm over the steering wheel and turned his entire upper body toward her after blocking her exit.

​He hadn’t been wearing his seatbelt, so nothing restrained his body as he leaned directly into her personal space.

A confident, highly arrogant grin pulled at the corner of his lips, his wild eyes burning with a sudden, intense curiosity.

​”Can I interpret all of this as you worrying about me, sweetheart?” he asked, his deep voice carrying a smug, teasing warmth. ”You seem so worried about the fact that I nearly died.”

​April opened her mouth to reply, but for a split second, no words came out. Internally, her logical mind was already running a quick analysis.

​Worry? That was highly unlikely. I simply cannot afford to let my cash cow die before the board is even set. You are an incredibly valuable resource to my survival, and your sudden demise would throw my financial allocation into complete disarray.

​”You’re a valuable resource to me,” she finally said flatly, her voice returning to its calm, clinical cadence. ”I can’t let you die.”

​”Oh, really?” Nat chuckled, leaning even closer, his face inches from hers. The scent of leather and faint gunpowder clung to him, entirely dominant in the small space. ”Now I’m curious. In this future you keep seeing... when the world goes to hell, there’s death, screaming, zombies... where do I stand? What exactly do you see me doing?”

A bright blue system notice snapped open right before her eyes, hovering in the dim space between them.

​[System Notice! Client number three has asked for a reading.]

[Would you like to read Nat Collins’ fortune of the distant future?]

[​Number of insights left today: 5/5]

​April stared through the translucent blue text directly into Nat’s eager, manic eyes. He wanted a reading, did he?

​”Do you really want to know?” she asked softly.

​Nat’s grin only widened, his eyes flashing with a dangerous, childlike excitement. ”Yes.”

​With a subtle mental command, April reached into her spatial dimension. She pulled out her crystalline orb, setting it between them, setting up her professional prop.

The soft, ethereal blue light of the orb bathed the space, casting long, shifting shadows across Nat’s sharp features.

”Alright then,” she said and went yes, in her thoughts, looking down at the orb.