Chapter 11 - The Ghost of Michigan AvenueThe ink on Mark’s probation documents was barely dry when reality delivered its next crushing blow.
With his corporate credentials permanently revoked and his name flagged in every federal database, finding a job in Chicago was impossible. He spent his days dodging bill collectors and his nights sleeping on a narrow cot in a damp basement apartment that smelled of mildew and old concrete.
To survive, he took a job as a night shift janitor at a commercial warehouse downtown—the very district where he used to ride elevators to glass-walled corner offices.
One freezing night in late October, Mark was scrubbing the polished marble lobby floors of a mid-tier financial firm on Michigan Avenue when a sleek, black Maybach pulled up to the curb.
The uniformed chauffeur stepped out and held the umbrella as a familiar figure emerged from the back seat.
It was Arthur Vance.
Beside him stepped a woman in a sweeping emerald-green coat, her silver earrings catching the streetlights. It wasn't Elena. It was Jessica Thorne.
Mark froze, the mop slipping from his trembling grip and splashing dirty water across the pristine floor.
Jessica had returned to Chicago. Stripped of her vice-presidency at Vance & Co., she had apparently managed to claw her way back into the upper echelons of corporate finance by attaching herself to a rival investment group managed by Arthur’s oldest competitors.
She stopped dead in her tracks as she saw him.
The woman who once whispered ambitious futures into his ear while drinking imported wine now looked at him with the cold, dead-eyed expression one might reserve for a stray dog in an alleyway.
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"Well, look what the janitorial service dragged in," Jessica sneered, adjusting her collar. "I heard you took a plea deal, Mark. I didn't realize your fall from grace came with a mop and a bucket."
Arthur Vance didn't even bother to look down at him. He walked straight past Mark toward the elevators, muttering, "Some men are born to build empires, Sterling. Others are born to clean up the mess when they collapse."
