Chapter 53: Social Media Ghost King

Time passed and the day went by for Liam, as he spent it at home. He watched movies, played games and chatted with Stacy, and the others.

The chat had become the day’s true entertainment.

Stacy, Lana, Kristie, and Elise were at the center of it, laughing as they shared screenshots of their Instagram stories blowing up.

The yacht photos and short clips — candid laughter by the pool, panoramic shots of the Mia cutting through the open water, close-ups of their faces against a sunlit backdrop — had spread across their feeds like wildfire.

And the comments? Predictable, yet endlessly amusing.

Envy. Jealousy. Curiosity.

People wanted to know who they were with, how they got access to such a yacht, whether the guy behind it was some heir, some prince, some ghost of a dynasty no one had heard of.

"Honestly, the DMs are insane right now," Lana typed, followed by a crying-laughing emoji.

Elise replied seconds later: "Mine too. Some girl literally asked if I’d joined a secret society ????."

The boys found it hilarious, chiming in between their own jokes, but it was the girls who carried most of the conversation.

Stacy sent another screenshot — a comment section blowing up with speculation.

Liam read it all with smiles on his face. He didn’t mind the noise. If anything, it was amusing to watch how quickly people could spin themselves into knots over a few photos.

But then, mid-scroll, the conversation shifted.

"Liam," Kristie wrote suddenly, "what’s your Insta handle? We can tag you in the posts."

Liam paused. His thumbs hovered above the screen for a moment before he typed back: "Don’t have one."

The group went silent for a beat. Then the replies poured in.

"WHAT?"

"No way."

"You’re lying."

But he wasn’t.

When they pressed him, he told them the truth. How he never got around to creating one.

The reason wasn’t because he didn’t want to but because life hadn’t allowed him the luxury.

After his parents abandoned him, his days had been consumed with surviving, with working shifts until his body ached, with overthinking bills, debts, and the suffocating uncertainty of the next day. There had been no space for social media in that life. There was no time for late-night scrolling or mindless posting.

If anything, he admitted to himself, he thought that might have been one of the reasons why his past had felt so miserable. Humans needed outlets — ways to laugh, to share, to distract themselves from the crushing indifference of the world. Without that, life had been nothing but work and worry.

The girls naturally did what they do best as they immediately forced him into creating an account.

It took less than ten minutes. He picked a clean username, uploaded no profile picture, and followed no one. But the moment he sent the handle into the group, the flood began.

One by one, Stacy, Lana, Kristie, Elise, and the boys followed him. And because their pages had thousands — in some cases hundreds of thousands — of followers, the ripple effect was immediate.

By the evening, Liam’s brand-new account had crossed 100,000 followers.

Curious strangers flooded in, desperate to know who this account belonged to. Why were these popular girls following him? Why did he have no posts, no bio, no hint of identity?

Speculation spread like fire. People began digging, trying to connect dots, but they found nothing. Liam Scott didn’t exist on the internet. At least, not in a way that could satisfy them.

And while the world spun itself into curiosity, Liam set the phone aside and leaned back on the sofa, chuckling under his breath. He had no intention of posting and he had nothing to post.

***

Though the day was uneventful, it wasn’t wasted.

In the afternoon, he had called Daniel Conley.

Daniel’s voice was calm, professional as always, but Liam could sense the man’s genuine interest as he explained some of his plan for the company and how he wanted the company structured under the trust for protection.

He only told him the things he wanted him to know. There was no need telling him about the type of techs he has planned or the molecular assembler. But he did tell him that the company will be a tech company.

Daniel had listened without interruption, and when Liam finished, he offered quiet but firm approval.

"You’re thinking the right way, Liam. I can sense that you already have something incredible planned and if you’re to release it, acquisition attempts will be inevitable. And not polite ones. But if we build this correctly, not even the biggest corporations will be able to swallow you up."

The assurance had lifted a weight from Liam’s chest. He thanked Daniel, and Daniel promised to be ready the moment Liam decided to make his move.

Liam asked him when the trust will be ready and Daniel told him it will take nearly a week more.

Liam hung up the phone and a new thought began to gnaw at him.

Money.

The assembler cost $100 million. He had $27 million in liquid assets, which left him short by $73 million. The gap was large, but not insurmountable and he trusted the system to close it sooner rather than later.

The real issue was where to put the thing once he had it.

He couldn’t set it up in Bellemere Mansion. That was obvious.

The assembler wasn’t a toy. It was advanced, delicate and it requires staggering amounts of energy. Enough to make the local utility companies raise their eyebrows and start asking questions.

He couldn’t afford those questions. Which meant he needed a site.

Not just any site, either. He needed something discreet, private, large enough to house not only the assembler but also the infrastructure around it — logistics, security, maybe even a cover front.

He leaned back in his sofa, tapping his fingers lightly against the armrest.

Industrial sites in Los Angeles were limited, and the ones worth owning weren’t exactly invisible. If he bought a factory outright, people would notice. But if he went too small, it would look suspicious when a supposedly "empty" building started pulling enough electricity to power a stadium.

And then there was zoning, inspections, compliance — layers of bureaucracy that would slow him down.

Unless...

Unless he went through the trust.

Daniel could set up shell companies, cover entities that purchased the site in layers deep enough that even the IRS would lose its way tracing them. If he positioned the factory under a subsidiary that looked like it belonged to an unremarkable logistics firm, no one would question it.

But that raised another question: should he build in Los Angeles at all?

He thought about it.

L.A. had advantages — proximity, access to ports, connections. But it also had drawbacks: too many eyes, too much noise, too many people sniffing around.

A remote location might be safer. Nevada, perhaps. Or somewhere along the California desert where land was cheap, power was abundant, and prying eyes were fewer.

He rubbed his chin, staring at the ceiling as ideas tumbled.

For the first time since acquiring the system, Liam felt the full weight of scaling. Owning supercars and yachts was one thing. But creating technology that would shake the entire world? That demanded foundations.

And foundations required patience.

***

The evening sun bled slowly across the sky, casting long golden shafts into the mansion’s living room. Liam stood by the window, hands in his pockets, eyes distant.

On the phone, Stacy’s messages pinged again. She was laughing at the chaos on Instagram, joking about how his silence was making people crazy and calling him the ghost king of Instagram.

He smiled and put his phone back in his pocket. Their curiosity was the least of hi problem at the moment. He has more important things to worry about.

The next moment, he heard Evelyn’s voice, bringing him out of his thoughts.

"Sir, dinner’s ready."

Liam nodded and went to the dining table for dinner. After he was done, he went up to his room, retiring for the night.

The day has been long and fulfilling, and he was grateful to the people that made it fun for him.