Chapter One: The Last Slap My head was still ringing from the slap when I hit the concrete floor. That was the third time today. The third time some rich man in a suit decided that I was not a human being. His name was Derek, and he used to call me his brother back in high school. Now he was standing over me with his new watch and his new shoes and his new girlfriend who used to be mine. "You are nothing, Felix," he said, and his voice was calm like he was explaining something simple to a child. "You park cars for a living. I own three buildings you cannot even walk into. So when I tell you to move my car faster, you move it faster. You do not look at me. You do not breathe in my direction. Do you understand?" I did not answer. Not because I was scared. Because I was tired. Tired of answering. Tired of explaining myself. Tired of being the guy who lost his mother and then lost his girlfriend and then lost his apartment and ended up holding a orange vest in a parking garage that s

Chapter Three: The Morning That Changed EverythingI did not sleep that night.I sat on the floor of my cousin's living room with Derek's phone in my hand and the coin pressed against my chest. My cousin was passed out on the couch. He did not know I was there. He never did. I was just the guy who crashed on his floor and left before breakfast.The hours moved slow.At midnight I flipped the coin just to see if anything changed. Three seconds. Derek was still asleep in his fancy apartment. Maya was still gone. The accountant was still waiting. Nothing moved.At two in the morning I almost threw the coin away. The doubt was loud in my head. Who was I to bet against rich people? I parked cars. I failed out of school. My mother died broke and I could not even afford flowers for her grave.But then I remembered Derek's shoe on my leg. Maya's silence. The old man's words before he disappeared into the dark.Three seconds is all it takes to ruin a rich man.I kept the coin.At four in the m

Chapter Five: The Borrowed SuitI did not sleep again.Not because I was scared this time. Because my cousin's floor was hard and my mind was loud and every time I closed my eyes I saw Victor Kensington's smile. That smile said I own you now. That smile said you are a toy and I will play with you until I get bored.I did not like that smile.At six in the morning I got up and took a shower. Cold water. The only kind my cousin had. I scrubbed my face until the dried blood from Derek's slap was gone. Then I looked at myself in the mirror.Same face. Same tired eyes. But something was different. I could not name it. Maybe it was the way I stood. Straighter. Like my spine remembered that I was not nothing anymore.I had no nice clothes. Everything I owned had a stain or a hole or both. You cannot walk into Victor Kensington's office looking like a homeless man. He would eat you alive before you sat down.So I did the only thing I could think of.I called Derek.He answered on the first ri

Chapter Seven: The MeetingI did not go back to my cousin's floor that night.I walked the streets until the sun came up. Past the closed shops and the homeless people sleeping on cardboard and the men in white trucks washing the garbage from the sidewalks. The city never sleeps but it does get tired. I saw that tiredness everywhere I looked.At six in the morning I found a diner. The kind with sticky tables and coffee that tastes like dirt. I sat in the back corner and ordered eggs I did not eat. I just wanted to sit. To think. To hold the coin in my hand and ask it questions it would not answer.The coin only showed three seconds. Not three hours. Not three days. Just three seconds. Enough to win a fight or dodge a punch or know if someone was lying to your face. But not enough to know if you were walking into a trap.I finished my coffee and paid with a five dollar bill. The waitress smiled at me. She had kind eyes and tired hands. I wanted to tell her that her son would call her t

Chapter Nine: The Safe HouseThe address Marcus gave him was in the old part of the city.Felix drove past rows of abandoned factories and empty warehouses and buildings that had not seen light in decades. The streets were cracked. The streetlights were broken. Nobody came here unless they wanted to hide.He parked the BMW behind a rusted dumpster and walked the rest of the way.The building looked like it was about to fall down. Boards on the windows. Graffiti on the walls. A door that hung sideways on one hinge. Felix pushed it open and stepped inside.The inside was nothing like the outside.White walls. Clean floors. A desk with three computer screens. A couch that looked expensive. A kitchen with a fridge that hummed quietly. This was not a hideout. This was a command center.Chloe was sitting on the couch. She was not wearing the red dress. Today she wore black jeans and a black sweater and her hair was pulled back tight. She looked different. Younger. Harder."You are late," sh