Chapter 9 - THE CORNER OF 4TH AND ADAMS
Six months later.
Spring had returned to Chicago. The ice along the shores of Lake Michigan had melted into shimmering blue waters, and the tulips in Millennium Park were bursting into bright crimson blooms.
Monroe Strategic Capital had just closed its most profitable quarter in company history. The press had stopped talking about the scandal; they were now writing feature profiles about the quiet financial genius who had stepped out of the shadows to engineer one of the cleanest corporate turnarounds in the Midwest.
I was walking down Adams Street on my way to a lunch meeting with Everett Vale when I caught sight of a man standing outside an entry-level commercial brokerage.
He was wearing a cheap off-the-rack suit that hung loosely on his diminished frame. He held a leather clipboard, trying desperately to hand out real-estate flyers to uninterested commuters rushing past him.
It was Callum.
His hairline had receded, and the easy, arrogant charm that had once captivated banquet halls was entirely extinguished. He was thirty-eight, working on commission, living in a cramped studio apartment in Rogers Park, carrying the crushing weight of seven million dollars in personal bankruptcy debt.
As I paused at the pedestrian crosswalk, his eyes met mine.
A jolt of shock went through him. He froze, the flyers trembling in his hand. For a fleeting second, I saw a flicker of that old, desperate entitlement in his gaze—the urge to run over, to plead, to demand a piece of the world he felt entitled to.
Then he remembered who held every card.
Slowly, Callum Whitmore lowered his eyes, bowed his head, and stepped back into the doorway, unable to bear the weight of my gaze.
May you like
I didn't smile. I felt no vindictive joy, nor did I feel pity. He had gambled his dignity, his marriage, and his soul for the cheap thrill of feeling superior—and the market had corrected him.
The pedestrian light turned green. I stepped forward, leaving him behind forever.
