Chapter 3 - THE WORLD WATCHES
By sunrise the next morning, Jamal Washington was the most famous man on the internet.
A thirty-second clip of him sliding his eight-millimeter wrench into the depths of the roaring prototype while Victoria looked on in sneering disdain had garnered forty-eight million views across TikTok, X, and YouTube. Commentators on morning financial shows were dissecting his diagnosis with animated 3D diagrams, while late-night comedians were already drafting opening monologues about the billionaire tech queen who had bet her marital status on a torque wrench.
Inside the glass-walled boardroom on the sixty-seventh floor of the Apex Tower in downtown San Francisco, the atmosphere was less celebratory.
Victoria Sterling sat at the head of the marble table, surrounded by six senior partners from the city's most ruthless public relations and legal firms. Outside the soundproof windows, three news helicopters circled like hungry hawks, their telephoto lenses trained on the penthouse glass.
"Legally, it was an oral wager made on a recorded public broadcast," Arthur Vance, the firm’s chief counsel and brother to the disgraced lead engineer, said, rubbing his temple. "Under California contract doctrine, an argument can be made that the offer was hyperbolic and lacked mutual consideration. However..."
"However," Victoria snapped, slamming her porcelain coffee mug onto its saucer with enough force to crack the glaze, "if I renege on camera, the public branding will destroy us. Von Keller’s syndicate will view it as an issue of corporate integrity. They haven't signed the final release for the hundred million euros yet. They’re waiting to see how I handle this."
"Handle what, Victoria?" Arthur demanded. "The man is a custodian! His father ran an illegal chop shop in southwest Detroit. He has a high school diploma and a dishonorable discharge from an apprenticeship union after a shop fire six years ago. You cannot invite him into your life, let alone this boardroom!"
"I don't plan to invite him into my bed, Arthur," Victoria said coldly, her ice-blue eyes narrowing to slits. "I plan to manage him."
The heavy double doors of the boardroom clicked open.
Every head turned.
Jamal walked into the room. He wasn't wearing his gray custodian jumpsuit. He wore dark, pressed denim, clean steel-toed leather boots, and a simple black canvas work jacket. His dark skin was scrubbed clean of grease, his close-cropped beard precisely lined, and his broad shoulders seemed to take up half the doorway. He carried no paperwork, no laptop, and no defensive posture.
He walked to the only empty chair at the table—directly opposite Victoria—pulled it back, and sat down.
"Nice view," Jamal said, glancing out at the Bay Bridge suspended above the morning fog. "A lot quieter up here than the basement. Though the air smells like fear."
The lawyers stiffened. Arthur leaned forward, sliding a crisp, twenty-page legal document across the polished marble. "Mr. Washington. We are prepared to offer you an immediate severance package. Two point five million dollars in unrestricted stock options, a cash settlement of five hundred thousand dollars, and a guaranteed recommendation for a master technician position at our Reno testing facility. In exchange, you will sign a mutual non-disclosure agreement stating that your comments on yesterday's livestream were part of a planned corporate promotional stunt."
Jamal didn't even look at the paper. He rested his large, calloused hands flat on the table.
"Keep your money," Jamal said.
Victoria tilted her head, her gaze sharp as a diamond blade. "Excuse me?"
"I said keep your money, Ms. Sterling," Jamal repeated, his voice low and steady. "I didn't touch your engine for a payout. I touched it because your so-called geniuses were about to destroy thirty years of engineering history with their ignorance. That block was based on a 1994 Detroit Diesel platform that my uncle helped blueprint before your venture capital buddies bought the patents and buried them under twenty layers of silicon."
Victoria leaned back, a faint, dangerous smile playing on her lips. "Then what do you want, Jamal? You took the bet. Are you here to ask me for a wedding ring?"
Jamal chuckled—a warm, gravelly rumble that made two of the junior attorneys shift uncomfortably.
"I don't need a ring from a woman who thinks people are disposable tools," Jamal said, leaning forward until his gaze locked onto hers with suffocating intensity. "I want the shop."
"The shop?" Victoria repeated.
"The Advanced Prototyping Division in building four," Jamal answered. "No suits. No junior vice presidents telling my crew what torque settings to use because an algorithm told them so. I run the physical testing. You build the chassis; I make sure it doesn't kill the people who drive it. And as for your bet..."
Jamal stood up, towering over the table.
"You announced to the world that you were marrying the man who fixed your company. If you back out now, your stock craters twenty percent by noon. So here’s the deal: we play the game. A public engagement. Six months. You keep your investors; I keep your engineers from blowing up your autonomous fleet. When the first commercial truck drives coast to coast without a driver and without a flaw, we announce an amicable separation. You keep your empire, and I walk away with full manufacturing rights to my father's dampener patent."
Silence descended upon the sixty-seventh floor.
Victoria stared at him, realizing for the first time that beneath the blue-collar uniform beat the heart of a master strategist. He hadn't just fixed her engine.
May you like
He had taken her hostage.
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