Chase drove his beloved Acura TLX back from El Viento Securities, the hum of the VTEC doing little to settle his nerves. The meeting had bled into his afternoon, turning a lunch break into a strategic absence. He parked in the firm’s garage and walked back to the entrance, loosening his tie just to breathe.
Surprised he to bumped into Geoffrey Wagner on the sidewalk, positioned strategically between their building and Summers Brew. Geoffrey was a senior partner who wore his ambition like too much cologne – cloying and impossible to ignore.
“Wright,” Geoffrey said, checking his watch. “Long lunch? I hope you were billing.”
“Client relations,” Chase said, truth-adjacent.
“Good man. Speaking of relations, corporate wants us pushing the new El Viento recruitment drive. I need an assistant, and they need bodies.” Geoffrey glanced at the coffee shop window. “Think anyone in there has a pulse and a tolerance for paperwork?”
Chase followed his gaze. Through the glass, he could see Tabitha behind the counter, dressed in her usual black, looking like she was actively plotting her next snarky comment.
“You should definitely ask the barista,” Chase said, his voice dripping with invisible sarcasm. “The gothy one. She has a real respect for authority. I bet she’d jump at a corporate benefits package.”
Geoffrey nodded, completely missing the gag. “Everyone has opinions until they see the dental plan. I’ll leave some literature.”
Chase watched as Geoffrey pushed inside, armed with a stack of glossy Secure Your Future flyers. He saw Tabitha look up, her expression shifting from boredom to sharp defense.
Chase turned away, guilt pricking at him. Don’t touch the sweetener, Tabs, he thought. I know how much you hate artificial things.
He adjusted his jacket and headed for the revolving doors of Michael & Cole. The afternoon wasn’t over yet.
By the time he reached the office, the day had worn its Monday face – phones half-ringing, printers jamming in protest.
His inbox filled itself while he was away, a parade of subject lines that looked identical.
He opened the last one out of masochism.
Subject: Internal Review – Associate Gunther W. Status: TERMINATED
Reason: Gross Breach of Fiduciary Duty / Internal Subversion.
Context: Associate was assigned as lead counsel for the plaintiff in [Mayor’s Office v. Stiles & Springer]. Evidence confirms Associate was actively colluding with the defendants, John B. Stiles and S. Springer, to undermine the firm’s case. Incident: Gunther W. was discovered channeling privileged internal documents to the defense. Upon confrontation, Associate claimed to have witnessed “undeniable evidence” of supernatural coercion within the Mayor’s office tied to El Viento interests. He admitted to acting as an insider for the opposition based on these delusions.
Chase rubbed his temples.
It wasn’t that Gunther had lost his mind. It was that he’d crossed a line.
The firm called it delusion. El Viento considered it a bespoke betrayal.
Chase deleted the email. He didn’t know what Gunther had seen, but he knew this: people who looked too closely at El Viento machinery didn’t get corrected. They got deleted.
He closed the email client, locked his screen, and sat back long enough for the ceiling lights to buzz to be noticed.
The weight of the offer from Vincenzo, still echoed in his head. Philanthropic Venture Arm, Santa’s Little Saviors LLC. It sounded clean. Safe.
It sounded nothing like the Vincenzo he used to know.
Chase closed his eyes and for a second, he wasn’t in a high-rise law firm. He was seventeen, standing in the control booth of “Orangeside Square” mall, watching Vincenzo wrestle an ostrich away from the sporting goods display while a peacock strolled through the food court.
“Orangeside Square Plus!” Chase had shouted into the PA system, his voice cracking with adrenaline. “Next shopper to bring me a green sombrero gets an XBOX Live Gold 3-Month Pass!”
They had been $4,000 in debt for a pizza delivery blunder that involved neon lights and a zoo’s worth of animals. It was stupid. It was chaotic. It was the kind of trouble you could fix with a microphone and enough charm to outsmart security.
Vincenzo hadn’t talked about “human futures” back then. He’d talked about not getting grounded. He’d laughed while wrestling the ostriches.
Chase opened his eyes. The office was silent. The man in the purple jacket didn’t wrestle ostriches anymore. He bought the zoo.
When five o’clock came around it became legally defensible to leave. He told himself it wasn’t an escape, just punctuality.
The clinic’s lights were already dimming when she clocked out. She wiped the counter one last time, pet good-bye to a terrier named Goose, and traded her scrubs for jeans and a sensible cardigan.
Her phone buzzed.
Chase: Still surviving Zootopia?
Amelia: Barely. A corgi farted in front of me and I almost fainted. You?
Chase: Escaped with only moral bruises.
Amelia: You should put some ice on that. Or start a class action suit against “Mondays.”
Chase: Already started the paperwork.
She smiled, almost tripped on a curb, without a care. For the first time in months, the weight of a day felt manageable.
As Chase read Amelia’s text, across town Vincenzo was closing his stream. The chat faded, the neon dimmed, and silence filled the studio like a returning tide.
His assistant,Tori, poked her head in.
The board liked the new VIM venture.”
“They always like new ventures of managing our resources’ attention.”
He spun once in his chair, slow and deliberate.
“Edit and send the clip to the social media outreach team. Tag it ‘Birth of VIM’.”
“On it.” She hesitated in the doorway. “You sure about pushing Wright on-camera later?”
Vincenzo smiled without looking at her.
“Chase spent his whole life trying to be the good guy in a room full of people who already cashed out their souls,” he said. “He’s going to burn out, Tori. Quietly. Honorably. And he’ll call it character.”
Spinning his chair to face her.
“He didn’t even go to law school,” Vincenzo added, almost fondly. “Did you know that? Everyone assumes he did. He let them. But no…he taught himself. Online courses. Open-source materials. Forums. He built the degree sideways.”
Tori blinked. “That’s… not exactly traditional.”
“Exactly,” Vincenzo said, pleased. “That’s what I love about him.”
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
“He didn’t reject the system,” Vincenzo continued. “He just refused to kneel to it. Learned what he needed. Took his own path. Worked outside the rules just long enough to step back inside with something real.”
He smiled again, this time openly.
“That kind of tenacity? That’s rare. That’s dangerous, if you leave it unguided.”
A high school gym moment of Chase tickling him flashed in his mind.
“It’s endearing.”
Tori studied him carefully. “So… we manage the narrative. Build him and his influence up at the same time with the public.” She pondered for a moment, “We control the influencer, who controls the public.”
“Exactly.” Vincenzo’s voice softened, almost warm. “He’ll fight it at first. But once he sees the numbers, once he has the opportunity to lift the weight off Amelia’s shoulders, he’ll understand.”
He stood, walking toward the darkened monitor.
“I’m not taking anything from him,” Vincenzo said quietly. “I’m steering him towards the life he’s too proud to see in front of him.”
Tori nodded slowly, reading the tone.
Vincenzo leaned back.
The lighter clicked once in the dark, a small sun blooming between his fingers.
“Soon,” he murmured to the flame, “He’ll do the math. And he won’t even know it’s me that gave him the little push.”
He snapped it shut.
Chase’s dreams came shaped like contracts and regrettable memories. At 3 a.m. he gave up, reheated a sitting coffee strong enough to convince him to give up caffeine.
With nothing to do, Chase found himself sitting by the window watching the city breathe.
Every choice since Harrison Home had felt like one clean line between doing good and performing some kind of act.
His phone lit up with a notification from Instagram: Summers Brew posted a photo. A picture of a new seasonal latte art—a clumsy leaf that looked more like a skull.
It made him think of coffee. Which made him think of Wednesday. Which made him think of her.
He opened his text thread with Amelia. The cursor blinked at him, demanding action.
He typed: Looking forward to it.
He stared at the words. They felt sterile. He deleted them.
Suddenly, the memory hit him – visceral and sharp. The study room at Orangeside Community College. The smell of prop gunpowder and desperation.
He remembered the weight of the fake gun in his hand, the way they had staged the “shooting” to trick Dean Starmer. It was supposed to be a lesson about conspiracy theories. A layered gambit to cover up for one of Chase’s made-up classes.
But he remembered the part that wasn’t scripted.
Amelia, standing amidst the “bodies” of their friends, tears in her eyes that looked too real for a lesson meant for a nosy Dean. “But Chase, I only did it because I love you!”
She’d claimed it was part of the act later. Just improvisation to sell her own con. But he had seen her face. And he had done what he always did when things got too real: he made a joke, deflected, and then spent the rest of his time at OrangeSide keeping a respectable age appropriate distance from her..
He looked at the phone again. He couldn’t run this time.
He sent: Wednesday’s still on? Hoping that her phone was on ‘do not disturb’ after realizing the time.
The reply came fast, bubbling with that earnest energy she never bothered to hide. Chase felt a flicker of guilt – what if he woke her up?
Up late too. Or is it early? Noon. I’ve already made an agenda.
He smiled. Classic Amelia. An agenda for coffee?
Three dots. We have a lot of GROUND to cover. And I want to hear the truth about the “announcement.” No spin. No silver tongue.
He typed back: I’ll make it WRIGHT.
“Deal,” he said aloud to the empty apartment. The word sounded safe enough.
Outside, dawn rolled over the skyline. He drank, watching the light catch on glass towers, and promised himself that saying no to Vincenzo would stay easy.