"Accountability."

Leo’s head snapped up, his eyes fixed on the pothole.

There it was—ugly, dangerous, its mouth gaping wide, waiting to swallow the ankle of the next passerby.

The old man said they had complained a hundred times.

That meant City Hall knew the pothole existed.

But City Hall hadn’t fixed it.

Why not?

No money? Too much red tape?

Whatever the reason, the result was the same: the pothole was still there, and it had caused someone to break their leg.

Suddenly, the look in Leo’s eyes changed.

Ignoring the pain in his ankle, he grabbed the old man’s hand.

"Sir, you said just now that you filed a complaint?"

Startled by Leo’s action, the old man tried to pull his hand back.

"Yeah, I complained. What about it? I called the district office and even emailed that, what’s it called, the city hotline."

"Do you have records?" Leo pressed, his gaze burning. "Those emails, any phone recordings... do you still have them?"

"The emails should still be on my phone..." The old man looked suspiciously at this strange man in a suit. "Why are you asking? Are you a lawyer?"

"No."

Leo released his hand, a look of wild joy spreading across his face.

"I’m someone more troublesome than a lawyer."

He quickly pulled a pen and a small pocket notebook from the inner pocket of his suit, flipped to a blank page, and held it out to the old man.

"Sir, please write down your phone number, and your wife’s name," Leo said, his tone leaving no room for argument.

Intimidated by this intensity, the old man subconsciously took the pen and wrote down a string of numbers.

Leo tore out the page, glanced at it, and then carefully placed it in an inside pocket.

"Listen, I’ll contact you." Leo looked the old man in the eyes, making a promise. "Regarding your wife’s injury and the medical bills, I will get you a resolution. I guarantee it."

"But right now, I have to get back to the office immediately."

Leo glanced at the gaping pothole, his eyes turning sharp.

"I need to confirm a theory. If I’m right, this pothole is going to bury a lot of people."

He turned and ran.

He forgot about the coffee, forgot about his aching foot.

He limped back to City Hall, rushed into the elevator, and slammed the button for the third floor.

When he pushed open the doors to the Mayor’s Office, Ethan Hawke was bent over, tidying up the legal codes scattered disastrously across the desk.

Ethan had just arrived that morning, two hot coffees in hand.

He knew nothing of Leo’s ordeal the night before. All he saw was the chaotic mess on the desk and Leo, who had just burst in with mud on his pant legs, disheveled hair, and bloodshot eyes.

"Leo?" Ethan jumped. "What happened to you? Did you get mugged?"

Leo completely ignored Ethan.

He walked straight to the desk, muttering a string of words Ethan couldn’t understand.

’Not the city council... can’t just run around in their circle... have to break out... I have to break out...’

Ethan frowned, set down the coffee, and watched him. "Leo, you need to rest. What are you muttering about?"

"I don’t need rest, Ethan."

Leo’s head shot up, his bloodshot eyes staring so intensely that Ethan’s heart skipped a beat.

With a sweep of his arm, he sent the entire pile of thick Pittsburgh legal codes crashing to the floor.

THUD! THUD! THUD!

The heavy books slammed against the floor with a dull thud.

"Stop looking through this garbage! Our entire approach was wrong!"

Leo strode around the desk and pressed the computer’s power button.

"I’ve been searching for a clause on ’how to get the city council’s approval.’ I’ve been running in circles, playing by their rules, trying to break the stalemate Moretti created."

"But I forgot—Pittsburgh isn’t an independent kingdom."

"Above Pittsburgh, there’s the state of Pennsylvania!"

Leo sat down, his fingers flying across the keyboard.

Ethan watched the screen and saw Leo log into the official database of the Pennsylvania General Assembly.

He typed a phrase into the search box: Sovereign Immunity.

"Ethan, as a doctor of law, you should know this concept better than I do." Leo stared at the screen, speaking rapidly. "In the United States, the government generally has sovereign immunity, which means ordinary citizens can’t sue the government for its policy failures."

"That’s right," Ethan replied. "It’s to protect taxpayer money from being drained by endless lawsuits, and it shields the government from liability for torts while exercising its functions."

"But!"

Leo slammed the enter key.

The cover of an act popped up on the screen—the *Pennsylvania Political Subdivision Tort Claims Act*.

"There are exceptions to immunity."

Leo scrolled with the mouse, stopping the cursor on Section 8542 of the act.

"Start here and read on."

Ethan leaned in and read the section on the screen aloud.

"...a local agency shall be liable for damages caused by the following acts or conditions:"

"...Subsection Three: Dangerous conditions of utility service facilities, streets, or sidewalks."

Ethan’s voice paused for a moment before he continued reading, following Leo’s fingertip.

"...provided that the local agency had ’actual notice’ and failed to act despite having had a reasonable amount of time to take measures to protect the public from the dangerous condition."

A brief silence fell over the room.

Leo leaned back in his chair, pointing at the line of text on the screen, his hand trembling slightly.

It was from excitement.

"Do you see it, Ethan?"

"This is the nuke we’ve been looking for."

Leo pointed out the window. "Right downstairs, on the sidewalk on Grant Street, there’s a pothole where an old man’s wife fell and broke her leg."