Chapter 22– More Dominoes
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Smith shut the apartment door and leaned against it for a long second, the lock clicking like a period at the end of a sentence he didn't want to read. The Wesson dinner still sat heavy in his stomach… polite forks scraping plates while everyone pretended the scholarship mess was another headline under control. He crossed to the kitchen, poured water he didn't want, and stood staring at the dark window. The city lights bright outside, creating contrast against his dimly lit room.
His phone buzzed on the counter.
Unknown number.
He picked it up slowly, already knowing what it would say.
"Next board meeting. Delay the Riverside redevelopment vote. Make it look like a funding concern. One quiet word in the right ear. Do it, or the next cut hits closer to home."
Smith read it three times. The words didn't get any softer. He set the phone down, but the message stayed burned behind his eyes. Another order. Another small betrayal he was supposed to perform like it was nothing. All in pursuit of freedom that might never be real. He could feel the trap tightening… act and become the caller's tool, refuse and watch something worse roll down the hill. His hand hovered over the phone. Delete it? Forward it to someone? Or just… do it and buy another day of breathing room?
He pressed his palms against the cool counter. The moral line he used to see so clearly was gone. All that was left was the question of how much more he could bend before something inside him snapped for good.
A few kilometres away, Jack Griffith stood at the floor-to-ceiling window of his private office on the twenty-third floor. The building sat just far enough from the university that the campus life would not disturb his meetings, yet close enough that he could see the glow of protest signs moving through the streets below. Students had spilled out of campus. Chants drifted up faintly on the night wind. Phones lit up faces in angry clusters. The city was starting to feel it.
Jack swirled the whiskey in his glass, the ice clinking once.
"Look at them," he murmured, almost smiling. "All that noise, all that rage… and they still don't know they are pawns in a bigger match." He took a slow sip. "With this protest as cover, the Wessons won't see me coming. They'll be too busy putting out fires to notice the one I'm building right under their feet."
He turned slightly, eyes narrowing at the distant lights of Wesson Manor on the hill. The Wessons had built an empire he had always been meant to share. Now he would take it. Not out of spite. Simply because he wanted it, and because he finally could. They were already cracking—panicking, tightening security, pushing everyone away. All he had to do was keep feeding the fire. The businesses would be his soon enough.
He set the glass down and picked up his phone. One more quiet call. One more nudge. The smile that touched his lips this time stayed.
Back in the apartment, Smith paced the narrow living room. Marcus's face kept flashing in his mind… the tight shoulders in the hallway, the too-casual excuse, the way he'd vanished right before the announcement hit. Smith wanted to believe it was nothing. He really did. But the timing sat like a stone in his gut. If Marcus was feeding information… if he was the reason students were out there right now with no scholarships and no future… or maybe he knew who was responsible for the chaos…
He stopped at the window, forehead against the glass. Guilt and survival twisted together until he couldn't tell which was which. One wrong step and more people paid. One right step and he became exactly what he hated. The caller's message glowed on the counter behind him like a countdown he couldn't stop.
Across town in a small mansion on the quiet edge of the old colonial quarters, Jenny sat at the kitchen table with her mother. The TV played low—news footage of the growing protests, shaky phone videos of students holding signs, parents shouting at cameras. Her mother stirred tea, eyes fixed on the screen.
"This is getting worse," Josephine, Jenny's mother, said quietly. "Those kids… some of them had their whole year paid for. Now what?"
Jenny nodded, fingers tight around her own mug. "I know. Smith looked… lost today. Like he's carrying it all on his shoulders but can't say why." She kept her voice even, but inside something twisted. She hated seeing him like that. Hated even more that she couldn't tell him the truth yet.
Her mother glanced at her. "You two still close?"
Jenny gave a small, tired smile. "Close enough to worry." She looked back at the TV as another clip showed angry crowds outside the administration building. "I just hope whoever started this knows what they're doing. Because once it really starts moving… nobody's going to be able to stop it."
The three threads hung in the same night air.
Smith staring at the message that refused to let him breathe.
Jack watching the city burn from above, already planning the next spark.
Jenny sitting in the quiet kitchen, feeling the weight of everything she couldn't say.
None of them knew how close the next domino already was—or how hard it would fall when it finally did.