His hand rested on the paper.
The divorce agreement.
He held the pen, a cheap plastic thing the receptionist had handed him because he didn't have one of his own.
His knuckles were white.
The skin over his joints was pulled so tight it looked like it might split.
He wasn't just holding the pen; he was strangling it.
Across the table, Linda refused to look at him.
She was staring out the window at the rain, her profile sharp and cold.
Her left hand was on the table, fingers drumming a nervous, silent rhythm.
The diamond on her ring finger caught the fluorescent light-a harsh, cold flash.
It wasn't the ring Duke had given her.
That ring, a modest band he had saved for six months to buy, was gone.
Replaced by a rock that probably cost more than Duke had made in the last five years combined.
The door to the conference room opened.
It didn't creak; it swung open with the smooth, heavy silence of expensive engineering.
Simon Thorne walked in.
The smell hit Duke before the man even spoke-a wave of Oud Wood and money, a cologne that smelled like a cedar forest burned down with hundred-dollar bills.
Simon didn't sit.
He didn't need to sit.
He walked behind Linda's chair and placed a hand on her shoulder.
It was a heavy, possessive grip.
His thumb rubbed against the fabric of her blouse, a casual, claiming motion that made Duke's stomach twist into a hard, painful knot.
Duke felt bile rise in his throat, mixed with a dark, cynical realization. He knew who Simon was. Everyone in finance knew who Simon Thorne was. He was the heir to Thorne Capital, a man whose face graced the society pages every other week. Usually next to his wife, Victoria.
That was the sickest part of it. Simon wasn't here to marry Linda. He couldn't. He was already married to a woman whose family name carried more weight than his own. Linda wasn't upgrading to "wife"; she was auditioning for the role of "permanent mistress," and she was too blinded by the diamond to see it. Or maybe she just didn't care.
"Let's wrap this up," Simon said.
His voice was smooth, bored, the tone of a man ordering a coffee he didn't really want but would drink anyway.
He checked his watch.
A Patek Philippe.
Duke recognized it from magazines he used to read in waiting rooms.
Simon made a small, clicking sound with his tongue, a noise of pure impatience.
"I have a lunch reservation at Le Bernardin in twenty minutes," Simon added, not looking at Duke, but looking at the paperwork as if it were a stain on the table.
Linda finally turned her head.
She looked at Duke, but her eyes didn't really see him.
They looked through him, past him, as if he were a ghost haunting a house she had already sold.
"Duke," she said.
Her voice was brittle.
"Don't drag this out. It's not good for anyone."
Duke looked at her, searching for something-anything.
A flicker of regret?
A memory of the nights they spent eating takeout on the floor of their first apartment?
A shadow of the woman who had promised to stick by him through sickness and health?
There was nothing.
Just a flat, gray wall of indifference.
"You can't afford me, Duke," she whispered, the words low enough that the lawyer in the corner couldn't hear, but loud enough to pierce Duke's chest like a serrated knife. "You can't even afford yourself right now."
The truth of it was physical.
It felt like a punch to the solar plexus.
Duke had lost his job as an analyst three weeks ago.
His savings were gone.
His rent was overdue.
He was wearing a suit that was three years old and slightly too tight across the shoulders because he couldn't afford a dry cleaner.
He took a breath.
The air in the room tasted like recycled oxygen and Simon's cologne.
Duke pressed the pen to the paper.
The tip dug into the fiber.
He signed his name.
Duke Zeller.
The ink bled slightly into the paper, a jagged, dark scar.
The lawyer, a man with a face like a crumpled napkin, slid the papers away the second Duke lifted the pen.
He moved fast, as if the document were radioactive.
"Done," the lawyer muttered, snapping a folder shut.
Simon smiled.
It wasn't a smile of happiness.
It was the smile of a predator who had just finished a meal and was picking his teeth.
He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a card.
He flicked it across the table.
It spun and landed right in front of Duke's hands.
"If you get desperate," Simon said, his eyes crinkling at the corners with amusement. "My assistant is looking for a doorman for one of my properties. It pays minimum wage, but hey, it's a living."
Duke stood up.
His chair scraped against the floor, a harsh, screeching sound that made everyone wince.
His fists were clenched at his sides.
Every muscle in his body screamed at him to lunge across the table.
To wipe that smirk off Simon's face.
To make him bleed.
But then the image of his bank account flashed in his mind.
Balance: $42.18.
Assault charges required bail money.
He didn't have bail money.
He didn't have anything.
Duke looked at Simon, then at Linda.
Linda was looking down at her hands again, twisting the new diamond ring.
She wouldn't even watch him leave.
Duke turned around.
He walked out of the room, his footsteps heavy on the plush carpet.
The elevator ride down was a blur of silence and the sound of his own heart hammering against his ribs.
Just before the doors closed, he looked back through the glass wall of the conference room.
He saw Simon bend down.
He saw Simon kiss Linda on the cheek.
Linda leaned into it.
The elevator doors slid shut, severing the image like a guillotine.
Duke walked out of the building and into the world.
The sky opened up.
The rain wasn't just falling; it was attacking.
Cold, icy water soaked through his jacket in seconds.
His hair was plastered to his forehead.
Water ran down his neck, sending shivers down his spine.
He didn't have an umbrella.
He stood on the corner of 5th Avenue, shivering.
People rushed past him with black umbrellas, bumping into his shoulders, cursing him for standing in the way.
His pocket vibrated.
He pulled out his phone.
The screen was wet, droplets distorting the light.
A text message from his landlord.
Pack your things. I want the keys by tonight or I'm calling the cops.
Duke stared at the message.
The water soaked into his shoes, his socks turning into cold, wet sponges.
He was thirty years old.
He was single.
He was unemployed.
He was homeless.
He looked up at the gray sky, letting the rain hit his face, mixing with the heat of the anger that was boiling his blood.
He wanted to scream.
He wanted to roar until his throat bled.
But he just stood there, a drowned rat in a city of lions.
Suddenly, his phone hissed.
A bright, golden light exploded from the screen.
It was blinding in the gray afternoon.
Duke blinked, wiping the water off the glass with his thumb.
System Error?
No.
A black bar appeared across the screen.
Midas Protocol Installing... 99%
Duke frowned.
He tapped the home button.
Nothing.
He tried to turn it off.
Nothing.
The rain fell harder, drumming against the phone case.
100%
The bar disappeared.
A new icon sat in the center of his screen.
Black background.
Gold trim.
A stylized letter 'M' that looked like a crown, or maybe jagged teeth.
Duke's thumb hovered over it.
A jolt of electricity, sharp and static, zapped his fingertip.
It traveled up his arm, straight into his chest, making his heart skip a beat.
It wasn't just a shock.
It felt like a handshake.
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