Man in the Mirror

CHAPTER 4: FALLEN MAN

Rain again. Always rain. It hadn’t stopped since the night his life began to crack, as if the city itself refused to wash him clean.

When the police came through the warehouse door, Stephen didn’t fight. The shouting, the flash of badges, the click of metal cuffs, it all felt distant, like a movie playing somewhere else.

“Stephen Brooke, you’re under arrest for fraud, wire manipulation, and embezzlement.”

The officer’s voice was clipped, rehearsed. “You have the right to remain silent”

He didn’t hear the rest. The words rolled over him like thunder. He caught a glimpse of Patrick and Damian outside, watching from across the lot.

Patrick’s hands were in his pockets, his grin small and satisfied. Damian just tilted his head, expression unreadable. No one came closer. No one spoke for him.

They led him through the rain. Cameras flashed, how, he didn’t know, but suddenly there were reporters, microphones, headlines.

“Local Mechanic Turned Entrepreneur Arrested in Fraud Scandal.” He saw the words later, printed above his picture in the paper someone left in his cell.

Inside the holding room, the smell of sweat and metal filled the air. The clock ticked too loudly. Stephen sat on a steel bench, eyes on the floor. “You got one call,” the guard said. “Make it count.”

He dialed Alina. The line rang five times before she answered. “Stephen?”

Her voice was small, brittle. “Did you know?” he asked quietly.

“They said you”

“Did you know?”

Silence. He closed his eyes. That was answer enough. “Stephen, I—I didn’t think, Patrick said they were just investigating the company, I didn’t”

“You didn’t ask,” he said. “You never do.”

He could almost hear her crying, but it didn’t move him anymore. There was only emptiness, cold and heavy, like the rain outside. “What are you going to do?” she whispered.

He looked at the blank wall in front of him, his reflection warped in the metal. “Disappear.”

The line went dead. The next morning, they moved him for questioning. Paperwork, lawyers, signatures, his name dragged through every line like a curse.

Every question pointed the same way: toward guilt he couldn’t prove wasn’t his. “Your partners claim you handled all the transactions personally,” the investigator said. “Can you explain these transfers?”

“They’re forged,” Stephen said. “Check the logs. Check the signatures.”

“We did. They’re yours.”

“They’re not.”

“Mr. Brooke,” the man said, leaning forward, “we found surveillance video.”

He slid the same file across the table, the one Damian had sent. The fake alley exchange. The false timestamp.

Stephen looked at his own face on the screen and felt something inside him snap. “That’s not me.”

“Then who is it?”

He didn’t answer. What was there to say? The lie had been sealed with his name. Three days later, bail was posted, anonymous, quiet. He was released at night. No press, no crowd. Just rain and empty streets.

When he stepped outside the station, a black car idled at the curb. The driver rolled down the window halfway. It wasn’t Damian or Patrick. It was Cassandra, Damian’s assistant. “Get in,” she said. “Now.”

Stephen hesitated. “Why?”

“Because they’re not done with you.”

He climbed in. The car pulled away from the curb, weaving through the wet streets. Cassandra drove fast, glancing at him only once.

“You’re not supposed to exist after tonight,” she said. “They’ve got everything under your name. Accounts, papers, debt. The company’s going under tomorrow, and you’ll take the fall.”

“Why are you telling me this?” he asked.

“Because I’ve seen what they do to people who trust them.”

She handed him a folder, photos, statements, wire logs. All proof of the setup. And at the top, Damian’s signature. “They left trails,” she said. “Not many, but enough.”

Stephen flipped through the pages, his breath slow and heavy. “If I go to the police with this”

“They’ll bury it before you reach the desk,” she cut in. “You’re already guilty in their story.”

He stared out the window, city lights bending in the rain. “Then what do I do?”

Cassandra’s voice softened. “You start over. Leave everything behind. Change your name, your story, your face if you have to. Let them think they killed you.”

He looked at her. “You sound like you’ve done this before.”

She didn’t answer. They stopped near the docks, where fog rolled thick across the water. Cargo ships groaned in the distance.

“There’s a freighter leaving for Southport in an hour,” she said. “No paperwork. No questions.”

Stephen stepped out, folder in hand. The rain soaked through his shirt again, cold against his skin. He turned back once. “Why help me?” he asked.

“Because once, I believed in him too,” Cassandra said. “Don’t waste that belief on anyone else.”

The car drove off. Stephen stood there a long time, watching the ship lights blink through the mist. His world was gone, his business, his home, his name.

He opened the folder again, saw Damian’s signature one more time, and tore the pages in half, letting the rain take them piece by piece. “Good men make the best cover stories,” he murmured.

Then he boarded the freighter. Hours later, Alina scrolled through her phone in bed, the TV still replaying the news: “Former Mechanic Stephen Brooke Missing After Release; Suspected Flight from Prosecution.”

Her fingers trembled as she called Patrick.

“He’s gone,” she said. “They said he disappeared.”

Patrick’s voice was calm. “Good. That’s one less problem.”

“You don’t understand,” she whispered. “He’s not the kind of man who runs.”

Patrick laughed quietly. “Everyone runs eventually.”

The line went dead. On the open sea, Stephen stood at the railing, city lights shrinking behind him. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wedding ring, dull now, bent slightly out of shape.

He turned it in his fingers once, then let it fall into the dark water below. The sound it made was swallowed instantly. Behind him, the horizon waited, black and endless. He didn’t look back.