Saturday mornings were supposed to be hers.
That had been the deal she’d made with herself years ago, when her work life had started creeping into every corner of her existence.
No early meetings. No “quick calls.” No crisis unless it was literally on fire or someone was literally dying.
She would sleep in, make coffee, maybe go to yoga, wander through the farmer’s market, pretend she was one of those people whose relationship with their job was… healthy.
This Saturday, her alarm went off at 7:00 a.m.
She stared at the ceiling, contemplating mutiny.
Her phone buzzed.
Raj.
*You up?*
She sighed.
: *Define up.*
> Look out your window.
She frowned, swung her legs out of bed, and padded barefoot to the tiny living room.
Her apartment was on the fifth floor of a brick walk-up. The view was mostly Other Building—but if she leaned just right, she could see the street.
Parked at the curb, hazard lights blinking, was a black car.
Not the Hale car service sedan.
His car.
She recognized it from the one time she’d seen him get out in the garage—sleek, understated, expensive.
Her heart slammed.
: *Please tell me that is not what I think it is.*
Raj replied with a GIF of someone eating popcorn.
Her phone buzzed again.
Unknown number.
Except not unknown.
She’d memorized it.
She answered. “If this is you, I’m going back to bed.”
“Good morning, Margot,” Declan said, voice annoyingly awake. “Get dressed. We have to go to Queens.”
Her brain stalled. “What?”
“Queens,” he repeated. “Industrial park. NexTelis supplier. They agreed to meet off the record. Saturday was the only time they could do it without spooking their staff.”
She closed her eyes. “You’re outside my apartment.”
“Yes,” he said.
“You are *outside my apartment* at seven in the morning on a Saturday,” she repeated.
“Yes,” he said again. “We’ve established that. You have fifteen minutes.”
Her pulse pounded.
“So many questions,” she said.
“Ask two,” he said. “The rest in the car.”
“Why me?” she asked.
“You know the small-manufacturer side better than anyone in my core team,” he said. “And I want you there.”
Her throat tightened.
“And the second?” she asked.
“Are you dressed?” he said.
She made an inarticulate noise. “Goodbye.”
She hung up.
For a moment, she stood frozen, phone in hand.
Queens.
Industrial park.
Supplier.
Her chest squeezed.
She moved.
Fifteen minutes later, hair pulled back in a ponytail, leftover eyeliner smudged into something resembling intentional, jeans, sneakers, navy sweater, she clattered down the stairs.
She halted at the last step.
He leaned against the car, arms crossed, in dark jeans and a black Henley. No tie. No armor.
It did bad things to her circulatory system.
He pushed off the car when he saw her, eyes flicking over her quickly. Not lingering. Not overt.
But she felt it anyway.
“You’re late,” he said.
“It’s been thirteen minutes,” she said. “I had to put on pants. Civilization demands it.”
His mouth twitched. “Fair.”
He opened the back door for her.
“Chivalry?” she asked dryly. “Or control issues?”
“Both,” he said.
She slid in.
He got in on the other side.
The driver pulled away.
The city on a Saturday morning looked different. Softer. Fewer people. Fewer honks.
She took a breath. “Explain.”
“There’s a small machine shop in Queens,” he said. “Run by a man named Morales. NexTelis almost killed him three years ago with a contract flip. He survived. Barely. He doesn’t trust corporations. Or men in suits. But his cousin is dating an engineer in our robotics division, and she… connected us.”
“That’s… a lot of degrees,” she said.
“Networks,” he said. “They matter.”
“So we’re going,” she said slowly, “to talk to a man whose life was almost ruined by the company you’re trying to buy.”
“Yes,” he said.
“And you thought, ‘You know who I should bring? The woman whose father’s life *was* ruined by that company,’” she said.
“Yes,” he said again.
She stared.
“You’re insane,” she said.
“Probably,” he said. “But you’re also the only person in my orbit who can walk into that shop and not look like a tourist. You grew up around machines. You know the language.”
“Flattery,” she said. “Sloppy.”
“Data,” he said. “Accurate.”
She leaned her head back, watching the buildings blur.
“Does he know who you are?” she asked.
“He knows I’m from Hale,” he said. “He doesn’t know my net worth, my Forbes ranking, my… whatever.”
“And he knows… about me?” she pressed.
“That you’re my EA,” he said. “That your father ran a shop once. That you have opinions.”
“You told him that,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “It made him more likely to say yes.”
Her stomach twisted.
“How do you find these people?” she asked, half to herself. “Men who wrecked lives. Men whose lives were wrecked. You have them on spreadsheets?”
“Yes,” he said, without irony. “Not the wreckers. The wrecked. NexTelis had a pattern. I mapped it.”
She believed him.
She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
Silence settled.
The car moved off the highway, into Queens proper.
She hadn’t been here in weeks, despite living in Astoria. Work had devoured her.
Storefronts slid past. Laundromats. Bodegas. Repair shops. A church with a peeling sign.
Her chest constricted.
They passed a street she knew too well.
Her father’s old building was two blocks over.
She could almost see it, ghostly.
“Color?” he asked quietly.
She swallowed. “Orange.”
“We can turn around,” he said.
“No,” she said. “We’re here.”
The car pulled into an industrial complex—low buildings, wide bays, trucks parked haphazardly.
They stopped in front of a unit with a fading sign: MORALES PRECISION.
Her throat closed.
She forced air in.
Declan watched her. “Ready?”
“No,” she said. “Let’s go.”
He smiled, brief and sharp.
They stepped out.
The air smelled like oil and metal and old coffee.
The sound of machinery thudded faintly behind the roll-up door.
He rang a buzzer.
A pause.
Then a man’s voice, crackly. “Yeah?”
“Declan Hale,” he said. “And guest.”
The lock clicked.
They stepped into cool, oil-scented dimness.
Inside, the world narrowed.
Lathes. Milling machines. Workbenches. Cabinets full of tools.
It smelled like her childhood.
Her chest ached.
A man emerged from behind a CNC machine, wiping his hands on a rag.
He was in his late fifties, Hispanic, solid, with forearms like steel and deep lines around his eyes.
“Hale,” he said, eyeing Declan. “You look like a kid.”
“So I’ve been told,” Declan said. “Mr. Morales.”
“Call me Luis,” he said. His gaze flicked to Margot. “And you?”
“Margot,” she said. “Chen.”
His eyes sharpened. “Chinese?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Your father run the shop?” he asked, testing.
“He did,” she said. “Does. Smaller now.”
“You grew up in a place like this,” he said, nodding at the machines.
“Yes,” she said.
“Good,” he said. “You won’t faint when I turn things on.”
He turned to Declan. “You told me you were different. We’ll see.”
Declan smiled, small. “That’s why I’m here.”
Luis grunted. “Come.”
He led them through the shop.
Workers glanced up—a woman in coveralls at a drill press, a young guy sweeping. Appraising. Curious.
Margot inhaled the sounds, the smells.
She could see her father in every corner. Bent over a lathe. Cursing at a misaligned part. Laughing with a machinist.
Her eyes burned.
Luis stopped by a workbench cluttered with parts.
“This,” he said, picking up a gleaming component, “is what NexTelis wanted. Six years ago. They came, they took photos, they said, ‘We like your work, Morales. We want to give you a big contract.’”
He set the part down with a click.
“They gave me a price I couldn’t say no to,” he went on. “Then, six months in, they say, ‘We need it cheaper. You give us volume, we give you less per unit, but you make it up in scale.’”
Margot’s throat closed.
“They pushed me,” he said. “Hard. Squeezed my margins. I took a loan to buy a new machine so I could keep up. Then one day, they say, ‘We found someone cheaper.’ Contract terminated. Thirty days. Penalties for late delivery. No compensation for the tooling. Bank comes. Says, ‘We’re sorry, Mr. Morales, this is just business.’”
He spat the last word.
She gripped the back of a chair.
Declan’s jaw was set.
“How’d you survive?” he asked.
Luis snorted. “Luck. Stubborn. I had some other contracts. Smaller. I sued. Lost. But I made noise. Union guys stood with me. Local news did a story. NexTelis gave me a little… hush money. Not enough. Never enough. But I paid off one machine. Kept the others. Still here.”
“Barely,” Margot said, before she could stop herself.
He looked at her, surprised.
She shrugged. “You’re running lean. I can hear it. Fewer machines running. Less scrap. You’re careful. Too careful.”
He studied her, then smiled, grudging. “You *did* grow up in a shop.”
“My father’s was like this,” she said. “Until it wasn’t.”
He sobered. “NexTelis?”
She nodded.
He spat again, to the side.
“Bastards,” he said.
Declan cleared his throat. “I know you don’t trust big companies,” he said. “Or me.”
“Good,” Luis said. “You’re not stupid.”
“I’m not here to ask for your trust,” Declan said. “Not yet. I’m here to ask for your information.”
Luis snorted. “You want me to give you free consulting?”
“Yes,” Declan said, without shame. “You know things we don’t. Where the contracts cut deepest. Where the loopholes are. How they talked to you. How they justified themselves. I have case files. I have data. I don’t have… this.”
He gestured around.
She watched Luis’s face.
Skepticism. Curiosity. A flicker of something like hope, ruthlessly tamped down.
“Why should I help you?” Luis asked. “So you can buy them and say, ‘Look, we’re better,’ while you do the same thing with a smile?”
“No,” Declan said. “So I can buy them and *not* do that. But I can’t avoid their mistakes if I don’t see them. Really see them.”
“Case files show some,” Luis said.
“They show outcomes,” Declan said. “Not… process. Not tone. Not the way a man like Rourke looks at you when he says, ‘this is just business.’”
Something in Luis’s face shifted.
“You met him,” he said.
“Yes,” Declan said. “I don’t like him.”
Luis barked a laugh. “Good.”
He looked at Margot. “You?”
“He doesn’t remember my father,” she said. “That’s all I need to know.”
He nodded.
“You still think you can fix it?” he asked Declan.
“No,” Declan said.
They both blinked.
“But I can… make it less bad,” he went on. “I can build systems that make it harder for men like Rourke to make those calls. Checks, balances, transparency. It won’t be perfect. It will be… better.”
Luis squinted. “You really believe that.”
“Yes,” Declan said simply.
Luis studied him for a long, long beat.
Then he sighed. “Okay, kid. You want story time? You get story time. But you listen. And you don’t take notes like you’re in a board meeting. You listen like a man whose ass is on the line if he ignores what he hears.”
Declan nodded. “Deal.”
He glanced at Margot. “You take notes,” he murmured.
She almost smiled.
For the next hour, Luis talked.
About contracts. About reps. About how NexTelis had dangled dreams of partnership and growth and “strategic alliances” while quietly writing clauses that gave them unilateral power.
He showed them copies of old agreements. Circled phrases that had seemed innocuous at the time.
He told them about the calls. The tone. The condescension.
“They talk to you like you’re child,” he said. “Like you don’t understand ‘how business works.’ Like they’re doing you favor by fucking you.”
Margot flinched.
Declan’s nostrils flared.
He asked questions.
Sharp. Specific.
“How long between their first visit and the contract signing?” “Who read the contract with you?” “Did they pressure you to skip legal review?” “What did they say when you balked?”
Luis answered.
Sometimes he got angry. Sometimes he laughed, bitter. Sometimes he stopped, jaw clenched, eyes wet.
“It’s not just money,” he said at one point, voice rough. “It’s… pride. You build something with your hands. Your name on the door. They take that. They make you feel stupid. Small. Like you should be grateful they even looked at you.”
Margot’s vision blurred.
She saw her father, shoulders bowed at the kitchen table.
She swallowed hard.
Declan did not touch her.
He did not say her name.
But once, when Luis looked away to grab a file, his hand drifted, just an inch, closer to her on the table.
Not touching.
*Here,* it said.
She gripped her pen harder.
When they left, two hours later, the sun was higher, the heat more oppressive.
Luis walked them to the door.
“You’ll screw up,” he said to Declan, squinting in the light. “You know that, right? You’ll make promises you can’t keep. You’ll miss things.”
“I know,” Declan said.
“But if you make it even a little better,” Luis went on, “if one less guy ends up where I did… that’s something.”
Declan nodded.
Luis looked at Margot. “Your father. He still angry?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Good,” Luis said. “Anger keeps you sharp. Just don’t let it make you bitter. Bitterness is heavy. Hard to put down.”
She almost laughed. “I’ll… try.”
He patted her shoulder, rough.
“You come back,” he said. “When this deal is done. Tell me what you did. I’ll tell you if it was enough.”
He meant it.
She nodded. “Okay.”
In the car, silence fell like a blanket.
Declan stared out the window.
She watched his reflection.
He looked… wrecked.
Not externally. Externally, he looked like a man who’d sat in a slightly too warm room for two hours.
Internally, she could see the gears grinding.
“You okay?” she asked finally.
He huffed. “Loaded question.”
“Pick a color,” she said.
“Plaid,” he said, automatically.
She snorted. “Obvious. Pick another.”
He thought.
“Rust,” he said. “Like metal left out too long. Edges crumbling.”
She swallowed. “Accurate.”
“You?” he asked.
“Same,” she said. “With… streaks of… old bruise.”
He turned his head, looking at her fully.
“You… didn’t have to come,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “I did.”
“Why?” he asked.
She thought.
“Because I needed to see,” she said. “Not just numbers. Faces. The people you’re doing this for. Or to.”
He flinched slightly.
“Right now,” she went on, “this entire thing lives in your head as models and scenarios and probabilities. I needed it in mine as… Luis. My father. All those names on that list. So that when I’m in a room with you and Rourke and Alvarez, and it starts to sound like a game, I can say, ‘No. Remember Morales.’”
He closed his eyes briefly.
“I hate that you’re right,” he said.
She smiled, humorless. “Get used to it.”
He opened his eyes.
“You’re… not just my EA,” he said.
“I know,” she said.
“You’re my… conscience,” he said slowly.
“Dangerous word,” she said. “I’m not your moral compass, Declan. I’m your… reminder.”
“Reminder of what?” he asked.
“That the system you’re optimizing is made of people,” she said. “Not just data points.”
He nodded, slowly.
The car merged back onto the highway.
The city skyline rose in the distance.
Her phone buzzed.
MOM.
She grimaced.
She’d forgotten.
Sunday dinner had been moved to Saturday this week—her cousin’s schedule, an aunt flying in, the usual chaos.
She should have been on the train heading to Flushing, not in a car with her boss heading back from an industrial park.
Guilt twisted.
Declan noticed. Of course.
“Problem?” he asked.
“Family dinner,” she said. “I forgot. I need to text my mother.”
“Do it,” he said.
She did.
> *Running late. Work thing. I’ll be there by three.*
Three was… optimistic.
Her mother replied instantly.
> *Always work. Your father making extra pork. Don’t be too late.*
Her chest tightened.
“Go,” Declan said.
She blinked. “What?”
“Dinner,” he said. “We’ll be back by eleven. You can still make it.”
“Eleven?” she repeated, horrified.
He frowned. “Fifteen. I can have the driver drop you in Queens instead of back at your place.”
She pictured walking into her parents’ house straight from a car that had just dropped her off from a clandestine meeting with a man like Luis.
No.
“I can’t,” she said. “I’ll be covered in machine oil smell. My mother will know something’s off. And I… need a shower. And… time.”
He studied her.
“You lie to them a lot,” he observed.
She stiffened. “Excuse me?”
“By omission,” he clarified. “You don’t tell them the full shape of your life. You edit.”
“Everyone edits for their parents,” she said defensively.
“Yes,” he said. “But you’re a particularly… skilled editor.”
“That’s condescending,” she said.
“It’s an observation,” he said.
“Unwelcome,” she snapped.
He held up a hand. “Okay.”
Silence thickened.
After a beat, he said, “I lied to my parents all the time. Before I stopped talking to them.”
She looked at him sharply.
“You… don’t talk to them,” she said.
“Not really,” he said. “My father occasionally sends articles about ‘men in business’ he thinks I should emulate. My mother occasionally sends texts asking if I’ve met a nice woman yet. I occasionally send money to a fund that my sister administers so they don’t default on something. That’s the extent.”
Her heart squeezed. “I’m… sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he said. “It was… necessary.”
“For your sanity?” she asked.
“For my… survival,” he said.
She swallowed.
“What did they do?” she asked, curiosity tumbling out before she could stop it.
He considered not answering.
Then thought, *She told me about her father. She deserves… something.*
“They tried to… cure me,” he said.
Her breath caught.
“They thought autism was something to… fix,” he said. “Lots of therapies. Some good. Some… not. They believed the people who said if they just did X, I’d be ‘normal.’ When that didn’t happen, they decided I was… defective. Or defiant. Depending on the day.”
“Jesus,” she said softly.
He almost laughed. “They wouldn’t use that name in vain.”
He stared at his hands.
“They weren’t… evil,” he said. “Just… afraid. And proud. And unwilling to accept a version of me that didn’t match their story.”
“And now?” she asked.
“Now they tell their friends their son is a billionaire,” he said. “And pretend they were always supportive.”
Anger flared in her chest on his behalf.
“I’m sorry,” she said again. “And I mean it.”
He looked at her.
“I know,” he said.
Their eyes held.
He broke away first, gaze flicking to the window.
“You should go to dinner,” he said. “Even if you’re late. Your parents… show their love in… food and guilt. Better than… therapy bills.”
She snorted. “Debatable.”
“Take the day tomorrow,” he said abruptly.
She blinked. “What?”
“Sunday,” he said. “Don’t come in. Don’t answer email. Don’t pick up if I call unless it’s life and death.”
“Declan,” she began.
“You’ve worked eight days straight,” he said. “You’re… fraying. Take a day.”
The admission—*you’re fraying*—hit her.
He saw that too.
She narrowed her eyes. “Is this Dr. Kline again?”
“She suggested I… consider the emotional states of the people I rely on,” he said. “You count.”
She swallowed.
“Fine,” she said. “But if you blow something up in my absence, I’m charging overtime.”
“Deal,” he said.
He dropped her outside her apartment.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
“This was… not how I planned my Saturday morning,” she said.
“Me either,” he said. “Worth it.”
“Yes,” she said.
She got out.
At the building door, she turned.
He watched her, car idling.
“Declan,” she called.
He rolled the window down.
“Don’t… buy them if you can’t live with it,” she said. “Hale. NexTelis. The ghosts. Whatever. If the cost to your… soul is too high, walk away.”
He smiled, small and sharp. “You think I have a soul.”
“Yes,” she said. “That’s the problem.”
He held her gaze.
“I won’t buy them if I can’t… change them,” he said. “That’s my line.”
She nodded, once.
“Okay,” she said.
She went inside.
Upstairs, as she peeled off her sweater and sniffed her hair, which now smelled like oil and soap, she thought of her father.
Of Luis.
Of Declan, sitting in a car, holding ghosts on spreadsheets.
Her phone buzzed.
MOM.
> *Don’t be too late. Your father made extra. He says, if you don’t come, he eats your share and then you cannot complain when he gets heart attack.*
Her eyes burned.
She typed:
> *I’m coming. Save me some.*
She pictured walking in, kissing her father’s cheek, not telling him she’d spent the morning with a man planning to buy the company that had once broken him.
The lie by omission sat heavy.
She thought of Declan’s parents. Of lines drawn. Calls not answered.
She didn’t want that.
She also didn’t know how to tell the truth without breaking something fragile.
She showered quickly, scrubbing the oil smell from her skin.
As the hot water pounded her shoulders, she leaned her forehead against the tile.
There were cracks, everywhere.
In her rules.
In his.
In the stories they told themselves about who they were and who they needed to be.
Slowly, inexorably, the deal was pressing on all of them.
Thirty days.
She didn’t know what would give first.
Her phone buzzed again, on the counter.
She wiped her hands and checked it.
A text from an unsaved number.
But she knew who it was.
> *Buy your dad the mango cake. On me.*
A screenshot attached.
A confirmation from a bakery near her parents’ house.
Delivery scheduled for 2:45 p.m.
Her heart did something stupid.
She should have been angry.
Intruded.
He’d circumvented her. Inserted himself into her family sphere without permission.
She typed:
> *That was not necessary.*
Three dots.
> *He likes it.*
She stared.
> *You stalked my father’s dessert preferences?*
> *You told me. Sunday. Week one. “He likes the mango cake.”*
She remembered.
She’d forgotten he was listening that closely.
> *Boundaries,* she wrote.
> *You can tell him it’s from you,* he replied. *He doesn’t have to know I paid. I just… want him to have good cake.*
Her throat closed.
She put the phone down.
She didn’t respond.
She didn’t need to.
He wouldn’t push.
For now.
She got dressed, grabbed her bag, and headed to the train.
On the platform, as she waited, she thought: *Honest is not same as good.*
Maybe.
But sometimes, a man could be both.
Inconveniently.
Dangerously.
And she, who had always prided herself on her self-control, on her rules, on her ability to stay just this side of the line, found herself walking a little closer to the edge.
One step at a time.
One day closer to the end of thirty.
And whatever came after.