Chapter 1: Evan
"Congratulations, Mr. Ashwyck. The board meeting was unanimous." David Whitmore's voice crackled through my phone, distant but triumphant. I stared at the screen as his words sank in. My assistant, always working, even from home at this ungodly hour.
"Unanimous." The word tasted bitter on my tongue.
"Mr. Richardson said he's never seen anything like it. You got every single vote."
I exhaled cigarette smoke into the night air, watching it spiral up and disappear against the dark sky. Sixty-two floors above the rest of the world, this ritual was all I had left. Another drag. Another slow release.
David's voice pulled me back. "Evan? You still there?"
"Yeah, I'm here."
"The press release goes out tomorrow morning. They want you in at six for interviews. CNN, Bloomberg, the works. Are you ready for this?"
Ready? I gazed out at the city sprawling beneath me, a vast network of tiny points of existence. Each one representing lives, dreams, struggles I'd never know.
Me? Today was supposed to be a celebration. The kind of day people spend their whole lives dreaming about.
"The youngest executive in the history of the most prestigious financial company in New York City."
That's what they called me today. That's what the headlines would read tomorrow.
"Send them the statement we prepared. I'll be in at six."
"This is it, man. Everything you've worked for. You should be celebrating."
I glanced at the coffee cup in my hand, cold for over an hour now, but I kept holding it anyway. The cigarette between my fingers had burned down while I wasn't paying attention. Ash scattered across my shoe.
"Yeah. All those years of work." I ended the call and slipped the phone into my pocket.
But all I felt was emptiness.
No celebration. No joy. Just this hollow space in my chest.
I took another drag, letting smoke fill my lungs. The nicotine did nothing to quiet the constant noise in my head. Christ, there was always noise up there—thoughts churning, questions without answers, memories that refused to stay buried.
My hand trembled around the cold coffee cup. I set it on the railing and watched my fingers shake against the concrete.
Twelve years climbing this corporate ladder. Twelve years of sixteen-hour days and three hours of sleep. Twenty-three years of seeing her face every time I closed my eyes.
Had to be stress.
That's what normal people would think. Normal people who didn't claw their way out of the slums with nothing but a scholarship and stubborn determination. Normal people who got eight hours of sleep and didn't spend over a decade grinding from mailroom to executive suite.
I did it all because of a promise. The memory always came back the same way.
I was twelve, my head resting in Mom's lap on that threadbare couch. Her fingers moved through my hair in gentle strokes, hands worn rough from years of cleaning other people's houses. She looked more tired than usual that night, like she was carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders.
Mom was beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with makeup or fancy clothes. Green eyes like mine, ginger hair that caught what little sunlight managed to filter through our grimy window. She was young—too young to be shouldering the burden she carried alone. A single mother who'd somehow ended up in the worst part of the city, and I never understood how we got there or why we stayed.
I used to imagine her as a teacher. She had that natural patience, the kindness that made the neighborhood kids gravitate toward her when their parents worked late. She'd help them with homework at our kitchen table, never minding the extra mouths to feed or the chaos they brought. She should have been in a classroom somewhere, inspiring kids, making a difference. Instead, she scrubbed floors and toilets, came home exhausted, and still found energy to check my schoolwork.
That night, something was different, like she knew what was coming.
"Promise me, Evan." Her fingers stilled in my hair. "Promise me you'll get out of here. Promise that you'll make something of yourself."
Tears burned my eyes as I gripped her hand like it was the only thing anchoring me to the world. That was the last time I let myself cry.
"I promise, Mom."
Two weeks later, I found her on the kitchen floor.
Blood pooled beneath her head, spreading across the cracked linoleum in dark rivulets. Her face looked peaceful despite everything, like she was sleeping, waiting for me to wake her up for dinner. My knees struck the floor hard enough to bruise bone. My hands reached for her, then stopped.
Touching her would make it real. I wasn't ready for real.
The apartment looked like a war zone. Furniture overturned, glass scattered like deadly confetti, blood splattered on the walls in patterns that would haunt my dreams for years. The overhead bulb flickered intermittently, throwing dancing shadows across her still form.
I sat there for three hours.
Three hours before my twelve-year-old brain could process what came next. Three hours watching the blood darken at the edges, telling myself she'd wake up if I just waited long enough. Three hours of memorizing every detail of her face, storing it away for the lonely years ahead.
When I finally stood, my legs had gone completely numb. I walked to Mrs. Chen's apartment next door and knocked. She took one look at my face and her hand flew to her mouth.
"Call someone." The words fell from my mouth, empty as I felt inside. "Mom won't wake up."
Everything after that blurred together. Police officers with gentle voices and hard eyes. Questions I couldn't answer. Social workers with soft words and softer lies about how everything would be okay. They kept asking about family, anyone they could call. I stared at the wall behind them, counting cracks in the paint instead of responding.
Something fundamental broke inside me that day.
I sat in that police station with tears and blood on my face, jaw clenched so tight it ached, and realized the truth that would define the rest of my life: I was completely alone. No family. No safety net. Only me and the promise I'd made to a woman who would never see me keep it.
The grief came in waves, but underneath it, rage took root and grew. I wiped the tears and blood from my face and made another promise—one I'd kept ever since. Never again would I let myself be that vulnerable.
The cigarette had burned down to the filter. I dropped it and crushed it under my heel, then picked up my coffee from the railing. Another sip of bitter liquid that matched my mood perfectly.
"I made it, Mom," I said to the wind. "This view, this success… it was all supposed to be for you."
But she wasn't here to see it. She would never see it. Sometimes I tortured myself imagining a different world—one where she was still alive to witness this office, this view, this life I'd built brick by brick. Where she'd never have to clean another stranger's house or worry about rent. Where she could finally rest, finally be happy.
But hope was for people who hadn't learned better. Magic didn't exist. There was no power in the universe that could bring her back, no way to give her the world she deserved.
Somehow, that made all of this feel like the most expensive participation trophy in history.
The cold metal railing steadied me as I leaned against it, but that feeling was back—the one that had been nagging at me all week. The sensation of being watched from the shadows, just beyond my peripheral vision.
The city sounds began to fade. First the sirens, then the traffic, until even the wind seemed to hold its breath. The temperature dropped suddenly, and my breath became visible in the summer night air.
Below, the streetlights flickered in and out like I was seeing them through water. The concrete beneath my feet trembled. My coffee cup rattled against the railing. The cigarette smoke from earlier hung motionless in the air, defying physics.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and shook my head.
Maybe I was just tired. Or maybe I was finally losing my mind.
My skin prickled with electricity. That sensation from earlier intensified, like the charged air before a thunderstorm. The balcony felt smaller, the darkness more oppressive. Then I heard it—the distinct sound of heels clicking against concrete.
Click, click. Click, click.
Who would be here this late? The building should have been empty except for security.
I spun around, but the darkness swallowed everything beyond a few feet.
"Evan…"
My name drifted from the shadows, spoken in a voice I couldn't quite place.
I squinted, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. "Who's there?"
A hand emerged from the darkness. Long, slender fingers stretched toward me. In the dim illumination, I caught a glimpse of blonde hair, but her face remained hidden in shadow.
Electricity sparked between her fingertips, crackling with bright white energy that made her entire form glow like something from a fever dream. I raised my arm to block the sudden brightness flooding the balcony, but I still couldn't make out her features clearly.
"Let me borrow your strength."
My throat constricted. This couldn't be real. People didn't glow with electricity. They didn't have sparks dancing between their fingers like they were conducting an orchestra of pure energy.
BOOM!
The energy slammed into my chest and launched me backward over the railing. My coffee cup exploded against the concrete as I went over the edge.
Night air caught me as I fell.
Above me, a face smiled down through the darkness.
A strange sensation swept over me.
There was no shove. No hands pressing against me. But something had hit me, and now I was plummeting toward certain death.
Everything flipped. My stomach shot into my throat as sixty-two stories of empty space opened beneath me. The wind became a living thing, ripping the breath from my lungs and roaring in my ears with a sound that drowned out everything else.
My suit jacket whipped against my back like a flag in a hurricane. Below, streetlights spun into streaks of fire, a nauseating river rushing up to meet me. Each second stretched endlessly, packed with the brutal reality of falling.
So this is how it ends?
The thought cut through the chaos with crystal clarity. I closed my eyes, shutting out the spinning world, and felt a strange calm settle over me.
The last trace of smoke left my lungs as I descended through the night. After twenty-three years of fighting to keep that promise, of building something meaningful from nothing, this was where it all came to an end.
In the end, it meant nothing.