2026-01-11 06:57:22Dave took two beers out of the fridge and his hands were shaking a little. He opened the caps and foams spurted out. "Man, you better start talking. Last night you had been delivering pizzas like a maid. Today you are driving a three million dollar car?
Robert received the beer, and unscrewed what was left of the cap. “Do you recall those oil fields that I invested five years ago? The ones everyone laughed at?"
“The ones that had you kicked out of your family? Yeah, I remember. You lost everything." Dave was seated opposite him on an incompatible chair.
"They're producing now. Big time. Barrels a million a day. I have more value than I can afford in practice three lives. More than I had ever dreamed of money.”
Dave gave a whistle, a long drawn-out whistle. "Holy shit. So you're actually rich? Like, really, truly rich?"
"Beyond rich. Today, I have become the president of Zenco enterprise. Went out and signed the papers this morning.”
Dave choked on his beer. Coughed. Sputtered. Beer dribbled down his chin. "Zenco? Your family's company? The one that disowned you and kicked you out?”
"Yep. Money was required to clean up the mess of Carlton. My dear cousin seemingly lost money in company funds on cryptocurrency. Gambled away all his stuff in some foolish electronic lottery game.”
“And they made their crawling back to you.” Dave shook his head in disbelief. “That is some bad karma. Beautiful karma."
"I gave it to them. I, in turn, receive my job back. Full control. No board interference. They can't touch my decisions." Said Robert
Dave bent forward, his knees on his elbows. "What about Roxanne? Does she know about all this?"
Robert's jaw tightened. His hold on the bottle of beer tightened. "She called me today. Wants to talk. Says she made a mistake."
"You still love her, don't you?" Dave asked quietly.
Robert gazed at his beer bottle. The mark was flaking along the edges. Dripping dripped down the glass. "Doesn't matter. She kicked me out. Believed Maxime over me. And vile to me five years may her mother slay.”
"But you still love her." Dave was insistent and did not relent.
Robert took a long drink. The beer was cold and bitter. "Love's not enough. Not anymore. Five years I served her. Five years I took her abuse. Her mother's abuse. I prepared, washed, delivered pizzas, I was dressed like a maid. And for what?"
"For this. For your comeback. For your revenge." Dave indicated all around.
"No. This happened despite them. Not because of them. They didn't help me. They tried to break me."
They drank in silence. The apartment was silent with the exception of the wall clock ticking and the traffic sound.
Dave finally spoke. "So what's your plan? Make them all regret it? Burn them all down?"
Robert smiled, though it did not get to his eyes. I began with an interview of Loretta tomorrow morning.
"Loretta? The model from last night? The person who embarrassed you in front of all the people?” said Dave with a surprised look.
"She has an interview at Zenco. In the case with the position of brand ambassador. I'm conducting it personally. Can't wait to see her face." Robert replied with a faint smile
Dave burst out into laughter and slammed his knee. “Oh man, she must be dying inwardly just now. Absolutely dying."
"She will be. I rescheduled her interview to 8 AM. Saying to her that if one minute late it's off indefinitely.”
"Brutal." Dave shook his head with a continued smile. "What about Maxime? You going after him too? That smug bastard?"
"Already did. Called Leonardo Vegas. He is withdrawing his invitation and outing Maxime as a fake. Everyone will be aware that he is a liar by the next day.”
Dave lifted his brew, where foam slopped over the edge. "To revenge. Sweet, beautiful revenge."
Robert shook bottles with him. Glass struck glass with a stinging sound. "To justice. Long overdue justice."
They drank deep. The beer was good, though not expensive. Familiar. Real.
The phone buzzed in the pocket of Robert. He pulled it out. A text from Roxanne.
"I called Blue Razor. Leonardo attested that it was you. Robert, I'm so sorry. Home, come home, we should talk decently. I mean it this time. I really do."
Robert turned the screen to David, and presented the message.
"You going?" Dave asked, reading it twice.
Robert begins typing slowly with words being very careful. "I'll come tomorrow. After my morning meeting."
He sent it. The message indicated as sent instantly.
Dave rose and walked around the small apartment. “Robert, will you mind answering me? Something serious?"
"Shoot." Replied Robert
"What do you really want? Like, deep down. What's the endgame here? Where does this all end?"
Robert thought about it. What did he want? Revenge? Respect? Love? All of it?
"I want them to see me." Finally Robert said, in a subdued voice. "Really see me. Not as a servant. Not as a failure. Not as a joke. As Robert Jackson. As a man."
"They'll see you." At this point Dave paused in his pacing. "Everyone will see you now. The whole world will see you."
Robert's phone buzzed again. Uncle Phillip this time.
"The office is ready. Signing all the paperwork with a notarized signature. Welcome back, Mr. President. The Jackson family is united again.”
Robert smiled. The next day, he would go into Zenco as the boss. He would have the interview with Loretta. Make her squirm. Get her to plead about the job that she believed was hers.
Then he'd visit Roxanne. What she said about herself. Hear her apology. Decide if it was enough. Determine whether or not she should be forgiven.
He would first take delight in this moment. Sitting with his sole true friend, drinking cheap beer in a small apartment. The truthful moment in a world of lies.
Everything would have changed soon. It would not take long before the whole world realized that Robert Jackson was no longer the man to push around.
He was the one who would strike back. Harder. Stronger. Without mercy.
Dave, said Robert suddenly, a thought coming to him. “Would you prefer to work at Zenco? Manager position. Six figures to start. Seven if you're good."
Dave nearly spit out his beer. His eyes went wide. "Are you serious? You're not joking?"
"Dead serious. I need people I can trust. It is only you who can be described so. You stood by me when I possessed nothing. When everyone else ran."
Dave smiled, and his whole face flushed. "When do I start?"
"Monday. At half past nine AM report to my office. Don't be late."
They clasped hands and the deal was closed. Dave's grip was firm. Honest. Loyal.
Robert was going to leave, and in a long gulp emptied his beer. "I should get going. Big day tomorrow. Lots to prepare."
Dave escorted him to the door, and was still smiling like a Christmas kid. "Robert? Do not lose yourself in all this. Revenge is a sweet thing but do not allow it to poison you. Don't let it turn you into them."
Robert nodded, and made no reply. He did not know how to answer that. Not yet anyway.
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CHAPTER TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY-TWO
On Tuesday morning, Robert appeared before the international economic committee.The committee room was a big formal room, as is the case with international institutional spaces. Wood panelling. A long raised table at which the Committee members were seated facing the witness. Three international news organizations cameras. Four of the seven Committee members wore earphones for simultaneous translation.Robert sat at the witness position alone.He had refused to let counsel be with him. He had refused to accept a draft and a rewritten version of his statement by his staff. He didn't accept briefing papers he had prepared with answers to questions he expected to be asked.He only had water to drink.The meeting was called to order by the committee chair. She was Belgian. Seventy years old. The kind of person who'd spent decades asking tough questions in official settings and wasn't about to be impressed by formality or status.She expressed her gratitude to Robert for coming.She put h
CHAPTER TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY-ONE
This was Carver's second meeting with Phillip, who met him on a Friday evening.The same private club. The same room. However, the meeting was not the same as the first one. Carver had requested that they engage in it specifically through the channel that they had used and had stated that the subject was important and needed to be discussed face-to-face. Those three words had been read by Phillip and he knew that Carver had discovered something.He didn't anticipate the butterflies in his stomach.He had been in rooms where there was a lot of information. He had served a long career in financial operations where the important information was the currency and the receiving of it in the neutral act. You heard what you heard, you used what you could use.He was seated across from Carver.Carver regarded him as he had regarded him the previous time. The evaluation of a person who was going to make a decision as he was looking at it before arriving.He laid a folder down on the table.He d
CHAPTER TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY
Agent Chen visited Dave on a Tuesday morning.She had never come to the office before. All previous messages had been sent by secure communication or in private meetings on locations with special neutrality. The office wasn't neutral. The office was visible. When she came to the office, she had decided that the need for what she was bringing was more important than the visibility of the channel.She was met in the lobby by Dave and escorted to the small conference room on the second floor which was not part of the executive floor, and had no window overlooking the main floor atrium. He had selected it ahead of her because if anyone was observing the construction the little conference room would not result in a visible meeting between Dave Morrison and a federal agent.Chen sat down.She did not open a folder or produce documents. She had brought nothing with her that could be observed or photographed."I am not here officially," she said.“Yeah, I get that,” Dave said."Somebody’s bee
CHAPTER TWO HUNDRED AND NINETEEN
At two AM on Thursday, Robert was in Clara's room.Roxanne found him there.She had woken at one fifty, stretched out toward him in the darkness and found that the bed space beside her was empty, with the particular coldness of sheets that had been empty for some time. She lay silent awhile. She listened. The air in the penthouse was silent. Not the alarming quiet. The ordinary quiet of a building at two AM.She got up.She went and found him in Clara's room standing next to the cot.He wasn't doing anything. Not adjusting Clara's blanket. Not responding to a sound. Simply standing. Having a glimpse of Clara as he looked at her sometimes in these hours. The total focus of the person who has discovered something to observe and is actively observing it.Clara was asleep.The small quiet breathing of a sleeping child. Perfectly safe and perfectly sound.Roxanne stood in the doorway for a moment.She watched the man who was watching Clara.This she had seen before. Not once or twice. Regu
CHAPTER TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTEEN
Robert received the invitation on a Monday morning.A formal letter on headed paper from the secretariat of an international economic committee convening in three months. The committee was reviewing the effects of wealth concentration and corporate governance and the responsibility of large-scale businesses to the communities they served.They were calling a small group of business leaders to testify. The invitation described Robert as someone who is very well known in the public arena, for whom the employee ownership movement and his track record of community investment are very relevant to the work the committee is doing.He took the letter to his desk to read. He put it down. He went to window. He returned and read it once again.It was his instinct that first came into him, as it had with the Patricia Osei profile. To decline. To help keep the particular privacy he had found so helpful in many years of understanding that visibility created vulnerability.He had not declined the Os
CHAPTER TWO HUNDRED AND SEVENTEEN
The doctor was located by Phillip's investigator on a Tuesday.Carver had been working backward through the records. From his limited access to the hospital's secondary system, as well as the names of the individual practitioners listed within that system. The majority of the names were common. General practitioners. Hospital staff. Expected rotations of routine care providers.A single name came up and then disappeared.A specialist. Connected to a private clinic that had since been closed. He specialist's professional registration had lapsed three years after the clinic closed. He had not practiced publicly since.It took four days for Carver to find him.He lived in a seaside town, eight hours away from the city. Not hiding exactly. Simply distant. The distance someone has maintained from an aversive connection to a professional life they no longer wished to have, as a result of physical separation, not hiding.His name was Dr. Aldric Mendes.He was an expert in obstetric medicine.
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