Two calls came before eight.
The first was from a polite woman at the Ferrari Halcyon City showroom. She wanted to confirm his purchase of a Ferrari SF90 Stradale and asked when he planned to collect it. Adrian explained that he would come by ten. Apparently, the car had been paid for in full by wire transfer late the previous night. It was a little unusual, she admitted, but everything had cleared and the paperwork was in order.
He thanked her, hung up, and stared at his phone for a few seconds. Even now, seeing the purchase confirmed made him feel slightly sick with disbelief.
The second call came from a number he had been ignoring for three weeks. Adrian stared at the screen for a long moment before finally answering.
"Mr. Vale."
The voice belonged to a man everyone called Dutch. He worked for Vince Rourke and had never once needed to raise his voice to make people nervous.
"You’ve been avoiding us."
"I have your money," Adrian said.
There was a pause.
In three weeks of calls, Dutch had never been silent before. "All of it?"
"A hundred and forty thousand. Give me the account."
"I’ll need to send you a new one," Dutch said slowly. "Your paper was sold last week, Mr. Vale. Mr. Rourke passed it on to a buyer out of Ventura. Crane Holdings."
Adrian’s grip tightened around the phone.
Silas Crane.
He hadn’t allowed himself to think about that name in months. Crane had mocked him at the Crane Royale, baited his pride, and watched him lose everything. Now he owned the last debt Adrian had left.
That wasn’t a coincidence.
"Mr. Vale?"
"Send the account." His voice came out flat and steady.
The details arrived by text less than a minute later. Adrian transferred the full amount before he could give himself too much time to think about it, then stared at the screen until the green check mark appeared.
A minute later, another message arrived from an unfamiliar number.
<<<Payment received. Mr. Crane thanks you for your promptness.>>>
Adrian read the message until his screen dimmed. "Fine," he said quietly to the empty apartment. "Play your game, old man."
He placed the phone on the table and forced himself to breathe. A hundred and forty thousand dollars, gone. For the past year, that number had terrified him. Now it was nothing more than a line in his transaction history.
But there was one more debt, and this one had no dollar amount attached to it. Adrian picked up his phone again and opened his messages.
Michelle’s name sat at the top of the list, along with a photo of her laughing on a beach in Ventura during their first summer together, back before he’d gotten good enough to destroy his own life.
He stared at the photo for a while. Then he started typing, only to delete it. Started typing again only to delete that too. Everything he wrote sounded either like begging or like a man trying to show off how much money he had suddenly acquired.
Eventually, he stopped trying to make it sound perfect and sent the simplest version he could.
<<<Adrian: Michelle. I sent $30,000 to your account. It’s for the rent, groceries, and everything else you covered this past year. I know it doesn’t even come close to what I actually owe you. I just wanted to show i appreciate you.>>>
He attached the transfer receipt. Then he closed his eyes and pressed send. The message delivered. A moment later, it changed to Read.
No typing bubble appeared, no reply came. Adrian waited five full minutes, watching that little word sit beneath his message.
Eventually, he understood. Maybe this was the right ending, or at least the honest one. She had every right to leave it there.
He set the phone down and rubbed a hand over his face. "That’s the first thing I’ve done right in a year," he murmured.
Oddly enough, it felt a little like standing up after being sick for a very long time. Then he thought about the other people he had allowed himself to drift away from.
His mom and dad. And Lily, his little sister, who would be sitting her entrance exams in a couple of weeks.
The calls home had grown less frequent with every passing month. Each time he hung up, he felt like a fraud, pretending everything was fine while knowing exactly how badly his life had fallen apart.
He opened another message thread and typed.
<<<Adrian: Mom. I’m coming home this weekend. Don’t tell Lily. I want to surprise her.>>>
The reply came less than a minute later.
<<<Are you eating?>>>
Adrian laughed out loud. For a second, something stung behind his eyes. "Yes," he typed back.
He put his phone away, grabbed his worn jacket, checked that his wallet was in his pocket, and headed out.
...
Thirty minutes later, the taxi pulled up downtown.
The Ferrari Showroom was a massive white cube of glass, catching the morning sunlight and throwing it back across the street in sharp, blinding reflections.
He stepped out of the taxi and looked up at it.
’Two days ago, I couldn’t even afford the bus.’ A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
He was still standing there when a familiar voice came from behind him.
"Adrian?"