Chapter 4

That afternoon, my landlord called.

"Milton! Your bathroom pipe burst! The unit downstairs is flooded, the ceiling's soaked through. I can't get through to your ex-girlfriend. Get back here and take a look, quick!"

I dialed Rosalind's number.

It rang a long time before she picked up.

"Hello?" Her voice came through noise, laughter and clinking glasses filling the background.

"The landlord says a pipe burst at the apartment. It's flooding." My voice was cold.

Julian's voice came in at once.

"Your pipe bursts and you call Rosalind? What's she supposed to do about it? She's not a plumber!"

"You're a grown man. You can't even handle a little thing like this without running to Rosalind? What a loser!"

"Tomorrow's the end of the month. Until then, you and Rosalind are still splitting that lease. Your pipe, your problem!"

Rosalind's friend cut in, voice dripping.

"Who is it?"

"That deadbeat Milton, who else! Our Rosalind finally wised up!"

"There's not one thing about him good enough for Rosalind. Broke as a joke!"

Julian didn't bother hanging up. He said it loud on purpose: "If I were Rosalind, I'd have dumped that Milton ages ago. What is he, even?"

"He's not worth one of my toes!"

Then came a wave of laughter.

I set the phone down and went back to the apartment.

We'd been neighbors for years, after all. I couldn't leave the people downstairs to eat it.

I spent the whole afternoon patching the pipe up as best I could, then paid the downstairs neighbors a few thousand.

Then I packed the last of my things.

Sitting on a cardboard box, I lit a cigarette.

Five years I'd lived here. Every corner held something Rosalind and I had picked out together.

The gray curtains she'd chosen. The coffee table we'd dug out of a secondhand market.

I stubbed out the cigarette and stood. At this point, thinking about any of it was pointless.

The door swung open.

It was Rosalind, a brand-new Chanel bag on her arm.

Julian stood behind her, twirling the keys to the BMW.

She leaned against the doorframe, glanced at the water stains on the floor, disgust all over her face.

"I told you to fix the pipe and this is what you call fixed?"

"How are you this useless? You can't even do a simple thing right. No wonder you'll be a low-level manager your whole life."

Julian snorted and slid an arm around her waist. "Rosalind, let's go stay in a presidential suite tonight."

"I can't stand another second in this dump."

"Tomorrow we'll get someone to clean the place up, then come back."

"You've still got a little left on those payday loans. Just get through the next few days. Once my funding hits a hundred million, I'm taking you to the top!"

Rosalind gazed at him, all tenderness. "Julian, whatever you say."

Looking at the two of them, I suddenly laughed.

"Julian, good luck with your funding tomorrow."

Julian tipped his chin up, arrogant. "Smart of you to know your place. But you'll be looking up at me for the rest of your life!"

After I moved out, I went straight to the Tiansheng Group suite.

It happened that Chairman Lambert—my uncle—had worn himself sick and needed to be hospitalized. He handed me full authority over the group.

Every day I worked through the backlog until early morning.

Until I opened an email and found a startup funding proposal.

【Chavez Technologies. Funding sought: one hundred million. AI big-data sector.】

Legal representative: Julian Chavez.

I called my secretary in and dropped the file on the desk. "This project. Dig into it until there's nothing left to find."

"Mr. Finch, Chairman Lambert caught something off about this one before he was hospitalized. He had me look into it already."

Justin James flipped open the folder. "I checked. There are serious problems."

"The company's registered in Silicon Valley. I had someone go by. The address is a run-down apartment building."

"The listed office is in Northgate. I asked the property manager. The third floor is rented out, sure, but the tenant runs an e-commerce shop selling knockoff sneakers. No sign of Chavez Technologies operating anywhere."

"As for that early-stage investment firm in the Harbor District he mentioned, there's no record of it with the registry. And the bank statements he provided are all Photoshopped."

I gave a cold laugh. "Keep digging."

Justin was fast. In three days he'd turned Chavez Technologies inside out.

A shell company. Fake statements. Fake backing.

He even dug up an old case. Two years back in Los Angeles, a crew ran the same scam and took an investment firm for ten million.

This business plan was clearly the 2.0 upgrade of that job.

I tapped the desk. "Justin. Call Julian in the name of Tiansheng Group's investment division."

"Tell him Tiansheng is very interested in his project, and we'd like him to come to headquarters for a face-to-face."

"And let him know I'll have a few friends from the industry there to talk it over too."

Justin understood exactly.

That afternoon, Julian arrived right on time.

He wore a rented suit, his hair slicked back and shining, a briefcase in hand, playing the part of a business elite to the letter.

He pushed open the conference room doors and swaggered in.

When he saw me seated at the head of the table, ringed by executives, his steps stopped dead.

The smile froze on his face and his eyes went round.

"Milton?"

"What are you doing here?"