Author: CuongH Mr

Part 1 The humidity in the city was a physical weight, the kind of thick, stagnant air that makes your cheap dress shirt cling to your ribs like a second skin. I checked my watch for the tenth time in two minutes—1:42 PM. I was three blocks away from the Weston Industries tower, the shimmering…

Part 1 The mahogany desk felt like a coffin. Forty-five years old, three billion dollars in liquid assets, and the only person who had spoken to me today was my assistant asking for a signature on a merger. Catherine had been gone six months, off to Paris with a man who probably didn’t spend eighteen…

Part 1 The snow doesn’t feel like a winter wonderland when you’re wearing a thin olive-colored dress meant for a dinner party that never happened. It feels like a thousand tiny needles piercing through your skin, seeking out the heat you no longer have. I sat on the cold metal bench of the bus shelter,…

Part 1 The air in the Swedish First Hill Maternity Wing tasted like sterile jasmine and impending doom. I checked my Audemars Piguet for the third time in ten minutes, the weight of the platinum band feeling like a shackle. Beside me, Sienna was pouting, her lips glossed to a high-shine finish that caught the…

Part 1 The marble floors of Carmine’s cost more per square foot than most people in this city make in a year. I sat at the corner table, the “untouchable” Evelyn Carter, nursing a vintage red and staring at quarterly projections that meant absolutely nothing to me tonight. My wrist itched under my silk sleeve,…

Part 1 The recycled air of the terminal smelled like burnt coffee and jet fuel, a scent that always triggered a low-level hum of anxiety in my chest. I adjusted my worn ball cap, pulling the brim lower as I watched Emma color in her book. At eight years old, she was the only thing…

Part 1 The air in the Golden Star Diner smelled of burnt decaf and industrial floor cleaner, a stark contrast to the sterile, expensive scent of my mahogany-row office. I sat in the corner booth, my $5,000 tailored suit feeling like a lead weight against the cracked vinyl seat. Outside, the Chicago wind howled, whipping…

Part 1 The smell of burnt coffee and cheap floor wax hit me like a physical blow. I shouldn’t have been there. I was supposed to be in a climate-controlled boardroom in downtown Phoenix, not sitting in a duct-taped booth at a roadside dive called Patty’s Place. A flat tire on the I-10 had turned…

Part 1 The receipt was a slap in the face. A big, fat zero sat on the tip line like a coiled snake, mocking the three miles I’d walked back and forth to Table 14 tonight. Adrian Whitmore, the king of real estate, the man whose face plastered every business magazine in Chicago, had just…

Part 1 The neon sign of the roadside diner flickered with a rhythmic hum that matched the throb in my lower back. I’d just pulled a double shift at the warehouse, and my body felt like it was made of lead and broken glass. But looking across the booth at Lily made every grueling hour…