Chapter 4 - The Eviction
The snow was falling heavily over downtown Chicago as Ryan stood outside the glass doors of the luxury high-rise where his penthouse apartment occupied the top two floors.
He had two suitcases sitting in the slush at his feet. His black Ferrari had been towed an hour earlier after the bank repossessed it following the immediate freeze of his personal credit lines tied to Mercer Urban Holdings.
His phone buzzed incessantly in his pocket. Not with calls from friends or business associates—those stopped coming by midnight. It buzzed with notifications from news outlets, Twitter tags, and a text message from Brooke Palmer that read simply: My father says we’re done. Don't call me.
Ryan felt a hollow, aching void in his chest. He looked up at the towering skyline of Chicago, a city his grandfather and father had helped build, and realized for the first time in his life that he didn't own a single brick of it. He was a ghost in a world he thought he ruled.
“Need a ride, buddy?” a gruff voice asked.
Ryan turned. A battered, rust-spotted Ford pickup truck was idling by the curb. The window rolled down, revealing the weathered face of a middle-aged construction worker wearing a high-visibility yellow vest. It was Tom Miller, a veteran foreman who had worked for Mercer Urban Holdings for twenty-five years—a man Ryan had once tried to fire over a minor scheduling delay.
Ryan stared at him in disbelief. “Tom? What are you doing here?”
“Old man Mercer called me,” Tom said, spitting a toothpick out the window. “Said you were standing out here like a lost puppy and needed a lift to your new place.”
Ryan’s pride flared up like a dying ember. “I don't need your charity, Tom.”
“It ain't charity,” Tom replied flatly, popping the truck door open from the inside. “Your dad bought you a modest two-bedroom apartment over on the North Side, near the transit line. And he told me to tell you one thing: ‘Welcome to the real world.’ Now get your bags in the back before you freeze your expensive Italian loafers off.”
Ryan stood in the freezing snow for a long moment, looking at the open door of the pickup truck. There were no cameras here. No livestream viewers clicking heart buttons. No waiters rushing to hold his coat.
May you like
Just a working man offering a ride, and a cold winter wind reminding him of who he really was.
Slowly, Ryan bent down, picked up his suitcases, and climbed into the passenger seat of the truck.
