Story code: ST-001919
Part 3: The Reality Check
“Yes,” I rasped into the microphone. The word scraped against my dry throat, barely audible over the relentless digital chimes of the Genesis Tier sales echoing through the studio monitors.
Chase beamed, his teeth blinding white under the ring lights. “That is the sound of a life changing, ladies and gentlemen! We’ll see you inside the Protocol!”
“And… we are clear,” the broadcast director called out from the darkness behind the camera array.
The red tally light on the primary lens blinked off.
Instantly, the heavy, suffocating pressure of Chase’s hand vanished from my neck. His million-dollar smile evaporated, replaced by a look of frantic, clinical calculation. He snatched the microphone out of my hand without looking at me and tossed it onto the glass desk.
“Give me the numbers,” Chase demanded, striding past me toward the production monitors.
Sarah, the teleprompter operator, cleared her throat. She looked pale. “Uh, you capped the five hundred spots, Chase. It sold out in less than two minutes. That’s… that’s five million dollars gross.”
Chase threw his head back and let out a guttural, triumphant yell. He slapped the glass desk so hard it rattled. “That is what I’m talking about! Scarcity creates demand! The Leo Project angle was genius. Absolute genius.”
I stood frozen in the center of the set, the heavy canvas of my mechanic’s jacket still suffocating me. The stale smell of old motor oil mixed with the cold sweat soaking through my undershirt. I looked at the secondary monitor, where the sales total was still climbing from the lower-tier packages. Five million dollars. Created out of thin air. Created out of my humiliation.
I unzipped the jacket and let it drop to the polished concrete floor. I walked over to the production desk and picked up my clipboard. My hands were shaking so violently the metal clip chattered against the plastic board.
“Chase,” I said. My voice was quiet, but it cut through the room.
He was busy toweling the sweat off his forehead with a pristine white microfiber cloth. He didn’t turn around. “Great job being a team player today, Leo. We’ll get you a fresh polo for tomorrow’s stream. We need you looking a little more put-together for day one of your ‘transformation.'”
“I need an advance,” I said, stepping closer.
Chase stopped wiping his face. He lowered the towel and slowly turned to look at me, his brow furrowed in genuine annoyance. “Excuse me?”
“I need an advance on my salary,” I repeated, forcing myself to hold his gaze. “Just five thousand dollars. You just made five million in two minutes using my actual life story. You put my bank account on a live broadcast to millions of people.” I swallowed hard, tasting bile. “I wasn’t going to ask, but my mother’s property taxes are due at the county clerk’s office by five o’clock today. It’s four thousand, eight hundred dollars. If I don’t pay it, they start the foreclosure process.”
The studio was dead silent. Sarah stopped typing. The broadcast director lowered his headphones.
Chase sighed. It was a long, heavy, theatrical sigh, like a disappointed father. He tossed the towel onto the desk and leaned against the glass, crossing his arms. He looked at me with a sickening mixture of pity and superiority.
“Leo, Leo, Leo,” he murmured, shaking his head. “Did you not hear a single word I just preached out there? Did you not absorb the lesson?”
“It’s my mother’s house, Chase.”
“And giving you a handout would be the absolute worst thing I could do for you right now,” Chase said, his voice slipping back into that gravelly, earnest cadence he used for the cameras. Even now, off-air, he couldn’t turn the guru persona off. “If I write you a check, I am feeding your scarcity mindset. I am validating your limiting beliefs. Money doesn’t solve a poverty mindset, Leo. Hustle does.”
I stared at him, my vision tunneling. “You literally stole my life story ten minutes ago.”
“I repurposed it for a higher frequency,” Chase corrected smoothly, pointing a finger at my chest. “I am trying to teach you how to fish, bro. The struggle you’re feeling right now? That anxiety? That is a gift. That is the fire that builds empires. When I was sleeping in that sedan, I didn’t beg for an advance. I grinded. I manifested.”
He spread his arms wide, gesturing to the exposed-brick walls, the soaring ceiling, the infinity pool sparkling through the gaps in the blackout curtains. “You think I built a twelve-million-dollar estate by taking handouts? You think I got this house by asking someone else to save me? No. I manifested it through sheer, unadulterated grit.”
My hands stopped shaking. A strange, icy calm washed over me, settling heavy in my chest.
“Grit,” I repeated softly.
“Grit,” Chase confirmed, nodding firmly. “So no, Leo. No advance. Use this pain. Let it make you a wolf.”
I looked down at the clipboard in my hands. As Chase’s personal assistant, I didn’t just steam his silk robes and wipe down his sneakers. I handled the mail. I handled the mundane, invisible logistics of keeping his perfectly curated life running.
I flipped up the top three pages of the broadcast run-of-show. Underneath them was the stack of mail I had collected from the estate’s front gate lockbox this morning.
I pulled a thick, official-looking envelope from the stack. It had a transparent window on the front, revealing a return address for the Travis County Tax Assessor-Collector. I had opened it to scan for his accountant, just like I did every year.
“I opened the new property tax assessment for this estate this morning,” I said, my voice eerily steady in the quiet studio.
Chase’s smug expression faltered for a fraction of a second. “That’s administrative. Give it to my CPA.”
“I usually do,” I said, sliding my thumb under the flap and pulling out the crisp, watermarked document. “But I was reading over the assessment details. It’s fascinating.”
“Leo, put the mail away,” Chase warned, his tone dropping an octave.
I unfolded the document. “Travis County Property ID number 84729,” I read aloud, my voice projecting clearly across the room. “Assessed value, twelve point four million dollars.” I looked up, locking eyes with him. “Owner of record… The Charles Kensington the Third Revocable Family Trust.”
Chase’s face drained of color. The deep, fake tan suddenly looked like cheap paint over ash.
“Shut up,” Chase hissed, taking a quick step forward, his eyes darting nervously toward Sarah and the director, who were now staring at him in stunned silence.
I didn’t step back. I held the document up, holding it exactly the way he had held up my grease-stained jacket.
“Your name is Charles Kensington the Fourth,” I said, the words ringing off the exposed brick. “You didn’t buy this house. Your daddy bought it in cash three years ago. You don’t even pay the utility bills, Chase. The trust does.”
“I said shut your mouth,” he snapped, his voice cracking, the polished gravel tone entirely gone. He reached for the paper, but I pulled it back, stepping out of his reach.
“You didn’t build an empire from the dirt up,” I said, tossing the county tax document onto the glass desk. It slid across the pristine surface and stopped right next to his white sneakers. “You’re a trust fund kid playing dress-up in my trauma.”