By 2:00 p.m., the board removed him—not with shouting or fury, but with the smooth precision of people who had rehearsed cutting dead weight.

By 3:00 p.m., reporters swarmed the sidewalk like insects after rain. Microphones were shoved toward his face, questions flying like small, sharp objects: Did you cheat the system? How long have you been hiding this? Who else was involved?

By 6:00 p.m., the word arrest stopped being speculation and became reality—typed, signed, and stamped.

By 9:30 p.m., his attorney said quietly, “You turn yourself in tomorrow morning. It’s the only option that doesn’t look like you’re running.”

So Andrew Cole came here.

He returned to the building where everything had begun fifteen years earlier—when the glass still gleamed and his conscience hadn’t yet learned how flexible it could be. He remembered standing on this same pavement once, younger and starving for success, convinced that wealth wasn’t just power but protection. Back then, he’d walked through those doors believing ambition justified everything, even turning people into rungs on a ladder.

Now, he sat on the curb like a man waiting to disappear.

Tears soaked into the cuffs of his tailored suit. His breathing came apart in rough, uneven bursts. Every sob felt like his body trying to expel years of choices it had swallowed without question.

He had no idea how long he’d been there. Minutes, maybe hours. Time had lost its shape—becoming something heavy and formless pressing down on his shoulders.

Then he heard footsteps.

Small ones.

Careful, light, hesitant—belonging to someone who’d learned early how to move gently through a world that wasn’t built to be kind.

Andrew didn’t look up. By morning, his face would be everywhere anyway. Disgraced financier. Fallen mogul. Fraud case shakes the city. A man’s collapse always became public property faster than expected.

The footsteps stopped right in front of him.

“Mister?” a young voice said.

Andrew covered his face, voice raw. “Go away.”

A pause—the kind children take when deciding whether an adult is dangerous or just broken.

“You’re crying,” the child said, like stating a fact might fix it.

“I said go.”

“Are you hurt?”

Andrew let out a bitter laugh, sharp as rusted metal. “You can’t fix what’s wrong with me, kid.”

Another pause, longer this time.