Suzie walked home like someone moving through water.
The city noise blurred around her—honking cars, voices, footsteps—but none of it fully reached her. Her body knew the route by heart, feet carrying her forward while her mind replayed the same moments over and over. The office with glass walls. And a man who hadn't raised his voice even once—and somehow that had been worse.
Leave the paper.
No promise.
Just silence.
The city pressed in around her as the afternoon slid toward evening—vendors shouting prices. A bus hissed to a stop nearby. Someone laughed too loudly behind her. Life went on with cruel normalcy, indifferent to the fact that she and her family were on the edge of losing their home.
She crossed the road without really seeing the traffic, stopping only when a horn blared sharply. Her heart staggered, breath shallow, as she forced herself not to break.
"Sorry," she murmured automatically, though no one had touched her.
Her hands trembled as she shoved them into her pockets.
Her chest tightened as she crossed the familiar streets leading to their apartment building. The sun was already dipping, washing the cracked sidewalks in dull gold. Everything looked the same as it always had, and somehow that made it worse. She hadn't fixed anything.
By the time she reached the door, her palms were damp. She paused, hand hovering over the handle, forcing a breath into her lungs.
Pull yourself together.
Inside, the apartment smelled faintly of rice and detergent. Her mother was in the kitchen, sleeves rolled up, hair tied back the way she always did when she was nervous. Her brother sat on the floor with his schoolbooks spread around him, humming softly under his breath.
They both looked up at the sound of the door.
"You're back," her mother said, turning too quickly. "You didn't call."
Suzie forced a small smile. "It was a long wait."
"How did it go?"
Suzie's throat closed. For half a second, she almost told the truth. That she'd been dismissed. That the man in charge had looked at her like a nuisance. That nothing—absolutely nothing—had changed.
But she saw the tension in her mother's shoulders. The way her brother's eyes searched her face, hopeful and afraid at the same time. And she couldn't do it.
"It's… going to be fine," Suzie said, forcing the words out. "I spoke to them."
Her mother's shoulders dropped a fraction, like she'd been holding her breath all day without realizing it. "You did?"
Suzie set her bag down carefully, as though sudden movements might shatter something delicate in the room.
"They said they'll look into it."
The words sounded steadier than she felt. It wasn't a lie. Not exactly.
Her mother pressed a hand to her chest. "Thank God."
Suzie swallowed. Her brother scrambled to his feet. "So we don't have to leave?"
Suzie knelt in front of him, smoothing his hair, meeting his eyes. They were too big for his face, always watching, always listening.
"Not yet," she said gently. "I promise."
The word promise burned her tongue.
She hated how natural it had felt.
Dinner passed quietly. Too quietly. Her mother asked no further questions, as if afraid the answers might undo the fragile calm. Her brother chattered about school, about a test he'd aced, about a football match he wanted to watch later.
Suzie nodded in the right places, smiled when expected, but her appetite was gone. Every bite felt like effort.
That night, when the lights were off and the apartment settled into sleep, Suzie lay awake staring at the ceiling. The faint crack above the window caught her attention—she'd noticed it years ago, but tonight it felt ominous, like a warning. The ticking clock felt louder than usual, each second another reminder that time was slipping through her fingers.
Her phone buzzed once. She grabbed it too quickly, heart jumping, only to see a notification from her email—nothing important. Just spam.
She turned the screen off and pressed it to her chest. Somewhere across the city, a decision sat unfinished. And she could do nothing but wait.
Ray Edwards shut the door to his office and loosened his tie with a sharp tug. The day had been a disaster long before she walked in.
Meetings stacked on meetings. Investors pushing timelines he hadn't approved. His father's voice lingering in the back of his mind, measured and unimpressed.
You need to prove you can handle this.
By the time he returned to his office that evening, the building was quieter, stripped of its daytime chaos. The lights dimmed automatically as he moved down the corridor, his footsteps echoing faintly.
He loosened his cufflinks and tossed them onto his desk with a muted clink.
Ray moved to his desk, eyes catching on the thin stack of papers he'd told her to leave behind. The eviction notice sat there, plain and unremarkable. He hadn't meant to keep it. Hadn't meant to look at it at all. Yet here it was.
He picked it up, scanning the details with practiced efficiency—unit number, dates, outstanding balance. Nothing unusual. Nothing he hadn't seen a hundred times before. The tenant's name. The address. The balance due. Everything perfectly legal. Perfectly routine.
And yet.
His jaw tightened. The woman from earlier—Suzie. He knew her name now.
She hadn't begged.
Hadn't cried.
Hadn't tried to manipulate him with tears or dramatics.
She'd just stood there, stubborn and tense, like someone bracing for impact.
Ray leaned back in his chair, eyes drifting to the window as the city stretched endlessly below. This was exactly the kind of situation that blurred the line between business and personal—something he wasn't supposed to get involved in. Personal stories blurred judgment. His father had made that clear more than once.
We run a business, not a charity.
Still, his fingers tapped once against the desk.
He turned to his computer, pulling up the property file. The building was older than most in the portfolio, one of the earlier acquisitions his father had approved years ago. Maintenance deferred, tenant complaints quietly buried under paperwork. The eviction policy was airtight. Legal. Clean.
Ray leaned back in his chair, eyes narrowing slightly. His father expected him to glance over these cases without a second thought. Numbers mattered. Stories didn't.
You want to run this company? Then think like it.
Ray exhaled slowly, closing the file and setting the notice aside. His fingers tapped once on the desk. There were solutions. Legal ones. Strategic ones. And then… alternatives.
He reached for his phone, thumb hovering over the screen. Whatever happened next wouldn't be routine. It would be deliberate.