Page 8 of Robbin’ the Rich

Tonight was different.

Well, except for the laundry avoidance.

I dropped my keys onto the counter and headed straight for my office.

Okay. ‘Office,’ was generous. It was technically the second bedroom of my apartment, but I’d converted it into a glorious gamer cave with enough technology to concern the federal government. Two massive monitors glowed across my desk beside mechanical keyboards, gaming controllers, tangled charging cords, and enough LED lighting to make my mother sigh about ‘ambiance.’ My custom-built PC hummed softly as I slid into the chair.

Usually, this setup was for gaming.

Tonight it was for crime… Allegedly.

I cracked my knuckles once and pulled up the files from Dad’s computer.

Ascension Fellowship.

Even their financial structure irritated me. Everything was polished, categorized, and sanitized. Millions flowing through carefully branded departments with names like Outreach Expansion Initiative and Kingdom Growth Fund.

Jesus would’ve flipped tables.

I leaned back slightly, scanning security protocols while rain rattled softly against the windows.

Getting into their system honestly wasn’t even difficult, which offended me on principle. For a church obsessed with spiritual warfare, their cybersecurity was embarrassingly weak.

Thirty minutes later, I sat inside Ascension’s internal financial portal sipping a Coke Zero, while their quarterly donation reports glowed across my screens.

I shouldn’t have felt this calm about it, but I did. Because the more I looked through the numbers, the angrier I got. There were production costs that could fund entire community programs. There were massive salaries, private travel expenses buried beneath vague wording. Thousands of dollars had been poured into aesthetics while places like Lantern House fought to keep the lights on.

My jaw tightened.

The church created this problem. The church could help fix it. Simple.

I opened a new transfer authorization screen. It was nothing huge, nothing noticeable to the amount of money passing through the church. But it was more than enough to matter to a shelter constantly surviving on scraps.

My fingers moved quickly across the keyboard. I set up a monthly recurring donation to Lantern House.

I paused briefly before changing the description field.

GOOD SAMARITAN MISSION

A laugh escaped me softly. That felt appropriately biblical.

I rerouted the transaction carefully through multiple internal budget pathways, burying it beneath existing outreach distributions and automated charitable reporting. It was clean, small, and most importantly, easy to overlook unless someone knew exactly where to look. Which they wouldn’t, because people rarely questioned money leaving churches when it sounded righteous enough.

I hovered over the final confirmation button for half a second.

This was insane, and most definitely illegal.

But all I could think about was Ariel trying to smile while talking about Lantern House stretching resources. I thought about Lila sitting on those back porch steps years ago pretending she wasn’t terrified.

The righteous rage I felt at churches building million-dollar stages while queer kids slept in shelters burned.

My expression hardened. “Congratulations,” I muttered to the screen. “You’re doing real charity now.”

Then I hit confirm.

The transfer was processed instantly.

For one long beat, I just stared at the screen while adrenaline surged through me at the thought of what I’d just done.