Chapter 9 - The Ghost of Manhattan
It was raining heavily in the city.
Julian stood under the small awning of a corner bodega, shivering in the damp cold.
He was holding a cup of cheap coffee, letting the steam warm his freezing hands.
He had recently found a job working as a night-shift data entry clerk.
It was menial, mind-numbing work that barely paid enough to keep him off the streets.
He walked past a newsstand, the colorful magazines protected by a plastic tarp.
His eyes scanned the covers out of habit.
Then, he stopped dead in his tracks.
Staring back at him from the cover of Forbes Magazine was a face he knew intimately.
It was me.
The headline read in bold, gold letters: "The Iron Lady of Tech: Clara Sterling's Billion-Dollar Empire."
He dropped his coffee.
The hot liquid splashed against his worn-out sneakers, but he didn't even notice.
He slowly reached out, his trembling fingers tracing the glossy cover.
I looked stunning, powerful, and utterly unreachable.
A fierce wave of regret, so painful it stole his breath, crashed over him.
He realized, with absolute clarity, what a monumental fool he had been.
He had held a diamond in his hands and crushed it, only to be left with the dirt.
He paid the vendor with a handful of loose change and bought the magazine.
He took it back to his cramped, depressing studio apartment.
He sat on his broken chair, reading every single word of the article.
It detailed my successes, my philanthropic work, and my dedication as a single mother to Leo.
He stared at the small picture of me holding our son.
His son.
A son he had signed away for a chance to avoid prison.
Tears, hot and bitter, finally spilled from his eyes, soaking into the glossy pages of his own failure.
He had nothing.
May you like
I had everything.
And he knew, deep down in his hollow chest, that he deserved exactly this.
