A fire had started in his own backyard.

And it had reached his most critical pillar of support.

Leo tightened his grip on the phone.

"Alright," Leo replied. "I’ll be right there."

He hung up and shoved the phone back into his pocket.

He looked at the room full of busy elites, at Murphy yelling into his phone, and at Ethan tapping away at his keyboard.

The war here was important. It was about five hundred million US Dollars, about winning and losing.

But the meeting by the river was a matter of life and death.

If he lost Frank, if he lost his working-class base, Leo would lose it all.

"Murphy."

Leo picked up the overcoat from the back of his chair and draped it over his shoulders.

Murphy, still on the phone, looked up and covered the mouthpiece. "What is it?"

"Keep an eye on things here."

Leo adjusted his collar, his tone calm.

"I have something more important to take care of."

He pushed open the conference room door and strode out.

...

The waters of the Monongahela River were a murky, leaden gray.

This was an abandoned pier on the South Shore of Pittsburgh. Rusted bollards and rotting planks creaked in the wind.

On the steel bridge in the distance, the flow of traffic merged into a ribbon of light, but here, there was only the cold wind and the sound of river water lapping against the embankment.

Frank Kovalsky sat on a bench at the edge of the pier.

He wore only a thin flannel shirt. The cold wind ruffled his graying hair, but he seemed to feel nothing.

He tightly clutched a crumpled piece of paper in his hand.

Leo parked the car and shut the door.

He stood in place for two seconds, adjusted his wind-tousled collar, and strode over.

Frank heard the footsteps, but he didn’t turn around. His gaze was fixed on a patch of oil floating on the river’s surface.

Leo walked to the bench and sat down next to Frank.

A fist’s width of space separated them.

That distance once signified the closeness of comrades in arms. But now, those few inches were crammed with suspicion and silence.

"Frank," Leo began, his voice fragmented by the wind.

Frank didn’t respond.

He slowly raised a large, rough hand and held the crumpled ball of paper out to Leo.

It was an article printed from the internet—"Wallace’s Betrayal: The Dirty Deal Behind the Port’s Privatization."

The black ink on the white paper looked particularly stark.

"Tell me."

Frank’s voice was low.

"Tell me this is a lie cooked up by those Republican Party sons of bitches."

"Tell me this is just mud slung by that rich guy from Philadelphia, Aston Monroe, to ruin Murphy."

Frank turned his head.

His bloodshot eyes, clouded and murky, stared intently at Leo.

"Leo, look me in the eye."

"Tell me you didn’t sell the port to Morganfield."

"Just say you didn’t. Even if the whole city of Pittsburgh pointed their fingers at you with proof in hand, I’d still believe you."

"I’ll take the guys from the Union, and we’ll go knock the teeth out of whoever started this rumor."

"Just say you didn’t."

Leo looked into those eyes.

He saw in them an old man’s last shred of trust.

A single lie, even a well-intentioned one, was all it would take to preserve this precious bond for a little longer.

Leo subconsciously wanted to lie.

"Don’t lie."

Roosevelt’s voice echoed in Leo’s mind, unusually stern. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

’You can lie to the voters, you can lie to your opponents, but you can’t lie to him.’

’He’s your foundation, the source of your power. If you lie to him, you’ll lose him forever. Once the lie is exposed, the backlash will be ten thousand times more terrifying than his anger now.’

’Give him the truth, even if it’s a bloody knife.’

Leo took a deep breath.

He avoided Frank’s burning gaze, turning to look at the ceaselessly flowing gray river.

"The details in the article are exaggerated."

Leo’s voice was soft, but clearly audible in the wind.

"But the core of it..."

"...is true."

Leo felt as if he’d swallowed a burning coal.

"I signed it."

"Morganfield got the port."

BANG!

Frank shot to his feet.

"Why?!"

Frank let out a roar.

He grabbed Leo by the collar, hauling him up from the bench.

Leo didn’t resist, letting the much stronger man shake him.

"What did we say at the beginning?!"

Spittle flew from Frank’s mouth, landing on Leo’s face.

"We were in that rundown shack, eating cold pizza and pulling all-nighters. We said we’d fight the oligarchs! We said we’d give this city back to the people! We said we’d run those Vampires out of Pittsburgh!"

"The workers trusted you! The old folks in the community trusted you! They lined up in the pouring rain to vote for you! They lifted you over their heads!"

"And for what?"

"The first thing you do when you get into office is package up the city’s assets and hand them over to our enemies?"

Frank’s hands were trembling, his grip so tight Leo felt like he was suffocating.

"Then what does that make me?"

"What does that make the brothers working day in and day out on the job sites?"

"Are we just chips on your poker table? Are we the stakes you used to bargain with Morganfield?"

Frank released his grip and shoved Leo hard.

Leo staggered back a few steps, hitting the pier’s guardrail.

Frank pointed at Leo’s nose, his eyes filled with disappointment and contempt.

"I thought you were different, Leo."

"I thought you were one of us."

"But then you put on a suit, sat in that office, and you became one of them."