Tuesday morning arrived with a crisis.
Ava was unlocking her computer at 6:55 AM when Sarah appeared at her desk, moving with the urgent efficiency of someone delivering bad news.
"The Nakamura deal is falling apart," Sarah said without preamble. "Their advance team landed three hours ago for the site visit, but the construction permits were rejected overnight. Something about environmental impact assessments that should have been filed six months ago."
Ava looked up from her screen, coffee cup halfway to her lips. "How bad?"
"Eight-figure bad. The kind of bad that kills companies and ends careers."
"Where's Mr. Cross?"
"Emergency meeting with legal. He wants to see you the moment he's free." Sarah's expression was grim. "Evan, in five years of working here, I've seen him handle impossible situations. But this one... this one might actually be impossible."
Twenty minutes later, Damon's office door opened and three lawyers filed out, their faces wearing identical expressions of professional doom. Through the open doorway, Ava could see Damon standing at his floor-to-ceiling windows, hands clasped behind his back, staring out at the Chicago skyline.
"Evan. In here."
She grabbed her notebook and walked into what felt like a war room. Papers were scattered across his desk, multiple laptops were open to different documents, and his usually pristine office looked like a hurricane had swept through it.
"Close the door."
She did, and the click of the latch seemed unusually loud.
"Tell me what you know about the Nakamura deal," he said, still facing the windows.
"Japanese tech conglomerate looking to build a data center campus outside the city. Potential value around sixty million. They chose Cross Industries over three other firms." Ava had spent her evening reading through client files, trying to understand the business that now employed her. "The site visit is today, and if they approve, groundbreaking starts next month."
"Was supposed to start next month." He turned from the windows, and she saw something she hadn't expected in his steel-gray eyes: uncertainty. "The permits were rejected this morning. Without them, we can't break ground. Without breaking ground, Nakamura walks. Without Nakamura, we lose the biggest contract in company history."
"What went wrong with the permits?"
"Someone in our planning department missed a filing deadline for environmental impact assessments. A deadline that passed six months ago." His voice was controlled, but she could hear the anger underneath. "The kind of mistake that destroys reputations, kills future contracts, and costs this company everything I've built."
Ava felt her stomach drop. If Cross Industries collapsed, she lost her job. If she lost this job, she and Talia lost everything.
"What do you need me to do?"
He studied her for a long moment. "I need you to perform a miracle. The Nakamura team lands at O'Hare in four hours. They expect to be taken to the construction site for a full tour and presentation. Instead, I have to tell them we can't build anything because of a paperwork mistake."
"Unless?"
"Unless someone can convince the environmental review board to expedite an assessment that normally takes three to six months. Unless someone can find an alternative site that meets all of Nakamura's specifications and has proper permits. Unless someone can perform magic."
He walked to his desk and picked up a thick folder. "Here's everything we know about what Nakamura wants, what they need, and what they absolutely won't accept. Here's a list of every available property in the greater Chicago area that might work. And here's the contact information for every person in city government who might be able to help."
He held out the folder, and she took it, feeling the weight of impossible expectations.
"Sir, I'm not sure I understand what you're asking me to do."
"I'm asking you to save my company, Evan. I'm asking you to find a solution that a team of lawyers, architects, and project managers couldn't find. I'm asking you to do the impossible."
"And if I can't?"
"Failure isn't an option I entertain, Mr. Carter."
The finality in his voice made her stomach clench. No room for negotiation, no acknowledgment of human limitations - just the absolute expectation that she would somehow bend reality to his will.
Ava opened the folder and scanned the contents. Technical specifications, zoning requirements, environmental regulations - it was like reading a foreign language written by people who hated clarity.
"How long do I have?"
"The Nakamura team expects a decision by five PM. That gives you eight hours to accomplish what should take eight months."
"No pressure."
For the first time since she'd walked into his office, something that might have been a smile flickered across his features. "Pressure is what separates the competent from the exceptional, Mr. Carter. Let's see which one you are."
Back at her desk, Ava spread the contents of the folder across every available surface. Site specifications, environmental regulations, zoning maps, contact lists - it looked like someone had exploded a bureaucracy and scattered the pieces.
She started with the basics: what did Nakamura actually need?
A minimum of fifty acres. Access to major highways. Proximity to fiber optic infrastructure. Minimal environmental impact. Zoning that allowed industrial construction. And permits that were either already approved or could be fast-tracked.
Simple, right?
She pulled up the city's online property database and started cross-referencing available lots with Nakamura's requirements. Most were too small. Others were in the wrong zones. Several looked promising until she dug deeper and found environmental restrictions that would take years to navigate.
Two hours in, she had eliminated ninety percent of the possibilities and was starting to understand why the lawyers looked so defeated.
Her phone rang.
"Cross Industries, this is Evan."
"Evan, this is Hiroshi Nakamura. I believe Mr. Cross mentioned we would be meeting today?"
Ava's blood turned to ice. "Mr. Nakamura, yes, of course. Welcome to Chicago."
"Thank you. We have landed early and are eager to see the construction site. Would it be possible to move our appointment to 2 PM instead of 4 PM?"
Two hours less to perform a miracle. Perfect.
"Of course, sir. We'll be ready for you."
"Excellent. We are very excited to see what Cross Industries has planned for us."
The line went dead, and Ava stared at her phone like it might explode.
"Problem?" Sarah appeared beside her desk, holding two cups of coffee.
"The Nakamura team moved their appointment up by two hours."
"Ouch. How's the miracle-working going?"
"About as well as you'd expect." Ava accepted the coffee gratefully. "Sarah, can I ask you something? In your experience, when Mr. Cross gives someone an impossible task, does he actually expect them to succeed?"
Sarah considered this. "I think he expects them to try harder than they've ever tried before. Whether they succeed or not... that's secondary to how they handle the pressure."
"So this is a test."
"Everything here is a test. The question is whether you're going to pass or fail."
Ava turned back to her computer with renewed determination. If this was a test, she was going to ace it.
She started making phone calls.
The environmental review board was backed up for months and couldn't expedite anything. The zoning department was short-staffed and couldn't make exceptions. After an hour of hold music and bureaucratic dead ends, she was ready to throw her phone out the window.
Instead, she changed tactics.
If the original site was impossible and alternative sites were unavailable, what if there was a third option nobody had considered?
She pulled up the environmental impact report that had derailed the original permits. Dense, technical language filled with phrases like "habitat disruption" and "watershed concerns." But buried in the middle, she found something interesting: a note about "previously disturbed industrial land" being exempt from certain environmental reviews.
Previously disturbed land. Land that had already been developed, torn down, and left vacant.
She refined her property search, looking specifically for abandoned industrial sites. Lots that had once held factories, warehouses, manufacturing plants - places that had already been environmentally impacted and wouldn't require the same level of assessment.
There. A sixty-acre plot on the south side that had once housed a steel processing plant. Demolished five years ago, environmental cleanup completed, zoning still approved for industrial use. And according to the records, permits for new construction could be fast-tracked because the environmental impact had already been assessed and mitigated.
It was perfect. Except for one small problem: it wasn't for sale.
The property was owned by something called "Meridian Holdings LLC," and according to public records, they'd been sitting on it for three years without doing anything with it.
Ava started making calls.
Meridian Holdings turned out to be a shell company. The shell company was owned by another shell company. That company was owned by a third shell company, which was finally owned by someone with an actual name: Robert Chen.
"Chen," she muttered, staring at the name on her screen. Where had she heard that name before?
"Sarah!" she called across the office.
Sarah looked up from her desk. "Find a miracle yet?"
"Maybe. Do you know anyone named Robert Chen?"
Sarah's eyebrows rose. "Bobby Chen? He used to work here. Left about five years ago to start his own development company. Why?"
"He owns a property I need."
"Good luck. Bobby's got a reputation for being impossible to deal with. Stubborn as a mule and twice as ornery."
"Do you have his number?"
Sarah was quiet for a moment. "Evan, are you sure about this? Bobby Chen and Mr. Cross didn't exactly part on good terms."
"What happened?"
"Bobby thought he deserved a partnership. Mr. Cross disagreed. It got ugly."
Ava felt her last hope crumbling. "So he'll never sell to Cross Industries."
"Probably not. But he might sell to you."
Twenty minutes later, Ava was sitting in a coffee shop three blocks from the Cross Industries building, waiting for Bobby Chen and trying not to panic.
She'd lied to get the meeting - told Chen she was representing a "private investor" interested in his south side property. Not technically untrue, since Cross Industries was technically a private company, but not exactly honest either.
Chen turned out to be a compact man in his fifties with graying hair and eyes that missed nothing. He slid into the booth across from her and got straight to business.
"You said you represent an investor interested in the Meridian property."
"That's right."
"What kind of investor?"
"The kind with the capital to make it worth your while to sell."
He studied her with the intensity of someone who'd made his living reading people. "You're young for this kind of work."
"I'm good at what I do."
"We'll see. The property isn't officially on the market."
"Which is why we're having coffee instead of going through a realtor."
"Fair enough. What's your client planning to do with sixty acres of former industrial land?"
This was the moment of truth. Ava could stick to her cover story and hope for the best, or she could take a massive gamble on honesty. _What would Damon do?_ she wondered, then immediately knew the answer. He'd tell the truth - brutal, direct, unflinching truth. It's what had gotten her hired in the first place.
Her phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number that could only be Damon: _Update?_
1:15 PM. Forty-five minutes until the Nakamura meeting. Her heart hammered against her ribs.
She chose the gamble.
"Data center. For a Japanese tech company that needs to break ground next month or the deal falls through."
Chen's expression didn't change, but something shifted in his eyes. "Japanese tech company. That wouldn't be Nakamura, would it?"
Ava's heart stopped. "You know about Nakamura?"
"Kid, I know about every major development deal in this city. I also know that Cross Industries was supposed to build the data center on the north side until their permits got rejected this morning."
He leaned back in his booth, a slow smile spreading across his face. "So Damon Cross sent his new assistant to clean up a mess his people made. That's either brilliant or desperate."
"Probably both," Ava admitted.
"You know Damon and I have history?"
"Sarah mentioned you didn't part on the best terms."
"That's one way to put it. Another way would be to say he screwed me out of what I'd earned and then acted like he was doing me a favor."
Ava felt her last hope die. "So you won't sell."
"I didn't say that." Chen's smile widened. "I said Damon and I have history. But you're not Damon, are you? You're just some kid he threw into the deep end to see if you'd swim or drown."
"Something like that."
"How long have you worked for him?"
"Two days."
Chen laughed, a genuine sound that transformed his entire face. "Two days, and he's already got you running impossible errands. That's Damon Cross for you - throw the new guy at the hardest problem and see what happens."
"Are you going to help me or not?"
"I'm thinking about it. Tell me something, kid - why should I care if Cross Industries succeeds or fails? What's in it for me besides money?"
Ava thought about the eviction notice, about Talia working double shifts to keep them afloat, about all the doors that had been slammed in her face.
"Because sometimes helping someone else succeed is the best revenge," she said finally. "You sell us that property, you don't just make money - you save Cross Industries from a disaster that would have destroyed them. That makes you the hero and them grateful. Which position would you rather be in?"
Chen was quiet for a long moment, studying her with those sharp eyes.
"You're smarter than you look, kid. Okay, here's the deal: I'll sell you the property for fair market value, but I want the sale completed today. Contracts signed, money transferred, permits filed. All of it. Can your people move that fast?"
"They'll have to."