# Chapter 1: The City He Shouldn't Exist In
The first thing Alessandro "Alex" Romano felt was cold metal beneath his cheek. Not polished chrome, not a hospital bed—just the faint gritty chill of a public space abandoned by warmth. A waft of stale air slid across his face. Something rumbled beneath him.
A subway platform.
He opened his eyes, letting the world sharpen in fragments.
New York City. But wrong.
Everything wore the colors of the late 90s—faded, sunburnt posters peeling from tiled walls. Ads for Blockbuster, RadioShack, Sega Saturn. A man in a huge Knicks jacket pounded the buttons on a payphone. A woman smoked under a "No Smoking" sign with the confidence of someone who knew no one would bother enforcing it.
Alex pushed up from the floor slowly. His palms felt… different. Softer. His wrists slimmer. Legs lighter. None of the old scars he'd earned through years of ruthless hustling and one violent death.
He swallowed.
A newspaper lay on a bench nearby.
June 4, 1996.
His pulse didn't spike. His mind simply… clicked. Like a machine slotting into a familiar operational mode.
"So it's true." His voice sounded younger too.
Transmigration. He had died—shot twice in an alley behind a Los Angeles warehouse—and yet here he was. Not reborn, but inserted into the life of someone who should've existed.
He stood, dusting off his jacket. His reflection appeared in the subway glass: olive skin, sharp cheekbones, dark hair with natural curls, eyes that carried an oddly mature weight. A face that clearly belonged to the Romano bloodline.
But this wasn't the body he died with.
He searched his pockets.
Wallet. Keys. A metro card.
The ID was real: Alessandro Romano, 20 years old. Half-Italian, half-Jew. Born in Brooklyn, living in Lower Manhattan.
Same heritage. Same name. Different fate.
His mother's face was in a small photo inside the wallet—bright brown eyes, half-smile, the kind that held both affection and warning.
He closed the wallet.
"Alright," he whispered. "Parallel world. Slightly different history. And I'm not supposed to exist here. Good." His lips curved slightly. "That means no strings."
1996: A Gold Mine Wearing a Cheap Suit
His thoughts raced, mapping opportunities.
1996 meant:
Google wasn't founded yet.
Amazon was still a tiny online bookstore.
Apple was crawling toward bankruptcy.
Dot-com bubble inbound.
New York real estate undervalued.
Hollywood still controlled by old dynasties.
And he remembered everything from his old world with perfect clarity.
Numbers. Dates. Stock movements. Mergers. Box office bombs. Scandals.
He didn't just have memory—he had something closer to a processor.
Then something flickered at the edge of his perception.
A faint shimmer. Like distorted heat waves.
He turned.
A stranger buying a soda from the vending machine had a dim blue glow around him—there one second, gone the next.
His brow furrowed.
"Supernatural? Aura? Energy signature?" he muttered.
The sensation had been faint, like catching a whisper meant for someone else.
It made sense. This was a parallel world—who knew what existed beneath the surface?
He closed his eyes briefly, testing the new sense. Nothing painful. Nothing overwhelming. Just a quiet frequency humming at the edge of awareness.
Useful. Dangerous.
The City Revealed
He climbed the stairs to the street. Sunlight slapped him in the face—warm, humid, late-spring New York air.
Yellow cabs blared horns. A vendor yelled prices for hot pretzels. Taxi radios blasted 90s hip-hop.
Alex stood still, letting the city breathe around him.
People passed, and each carried faint traces of that invisible shimmer, though 90% had none. Only a handful flickered with subtle light.
So only a few carried supernatural signatures.
Elites. Families. Organizations.
Hidden players.
Good. He liked games with layers.
His New Home
The walk to the address in his wallet took twenty minutes. Little Italy looked rougher in this era—less polished, more alive.
The apartment was a cramped one-bedroom above an Italian bakery. The place smelled like garlic, espresso, and old wallpaper glue.
The previous Alessandro lived modestly. A crooked TV, a cheap sofa, a cracked wooden desk.
But on that desk was a blank notebook.
Alex sat. Opened it. And began to write.
Guaranteed Winners:
Amazon (Buy before 1999. Hold.)
Apple (Buy at the brink of death. Wait for the iPod.)
Microsoft (Steady dominance—play long.)
Cisco, Qualcomm, Nvidia (Monsters in the making.)
Real Estate:
DUMBO, Brooklyn (Buy before the artists invade.)
Tribeca (Price explosion incoming.)
Hollywood Hills (Quiet gold.)
Hollywood:
Consider rights buying: Marvel characters scattered among studios.
Independent film wave incoming.
He wrote for an hour.
When he finished, the notebook's weight felt symbolic. Not supernatural—yet. But he could feel something waiting in the horizon. A third cheat. Dormant. Watching.
But not yet.
Testing the Aura
Night crept in through the blinds as he stepped out onto the small balcony.
He focused on the street.
A vendor glowed faintly yellow—calm. A drunk man flickered red—agitated, unstable. A man exiting a black sedan was surrounded by cold, sharp grey.
That aura was controlled. Trained.
An elite.
Alex's fingers tapped the metal railing. Chapter one of his new life was already writing itself.
A Phone Call From Another Life
The landline rang.
He inhaled once, adjusting his voice to match the identity he'd inherited.
"Alessandro?" a woman asked. The Italian softness instantly marked her.
His mother.
"Yeah, Mom," he said gently. "Just got home. Long day."
She exhaled. "Dinner on Sunday. Don't be late. And stay away from those boys downtown. They're not your friends. Trouble follows them like rats follow garbage."
Trouble. Aura. Elites.
"I'll be careful," Alex promised.
A lie. A polite one.
When he hung up, he stared at the phone, then let a slow smile rise.
He didn't come here to live quietly. He came to build an empire.
Step One: Capital
He didn't need millions. He needed enough to plant seeds.
Enough to buy real estate before prices jumped. Enough to enter stock positions early. Enough to build connections.
He knew where quick, legal-enough money flowed in 1996.
Underground poker.
The Poker Den
By 10 p.m., he reached Mulberry Street. A basement bar—unmarked door, soft Italian music humming under heavy laughter.
The moment he stepped inside, half a dozen faces turned.
"Alessandro!" someone called. "You're alive. Thought you skipped town."
He gave a slight nod, slipping into a seat at the main table. The dealer raised an eyebrow; Alex pushed cash forward.
Cards slid across green felt.
His mind activated.
Every micro-expression. Every twitch. Every pulse beneath someone's jaw.
He didn't count cards. He counted people.
Ten minutes in—he understood them completely.
Twenty minutes—his chip stack doubled.
Forty minutes—someone cursed. "Romano's on fire tonight. What'd you do, sell your soul?"
Alex smirked faintly. "Not enough people are buying."
The table laughed uneasily.
But one man, sitting in the corner, didn't laugh.
Tall. Broad-shouldered. Suit too sharp for this neighborhood. Aura almost invisible—thin, nearly folded inward.
A trained elite hiding his presence.
Alex's eyes flicked toward him once. That was enough.
The man's gaze sharpened. Target acquired.
Alex continued winning—slowly, not enough to draw excessive attention, just enough for believable luck.
When he stood to leave, pockets heavier, the man from the corner intercepted him at the staircase.
"Romano," the man said quietly.
Alex paused.
"Do I know you?" Alex asked, voice neutral.
The man's expression stayed unreadable.
"No. But someone will want to." He slipped a card into Alex's jacket. "Come to this address tomorrow night. Alone."
Alex met his eyes. A faint aura flickered—controlled, sharp. A warning. A test.
He smiled, brushing past.
"Tomorrow, then."
The man watched him leave.
And Alex stepped into the night with money, information, and the attention of a hidden world.
Good.
Let them look.
He intended to become someone worth fearing.
End of Chapter 1