a mediocre climb up the corporate ladder wouldn't be enough to give me what I really wanted."
“What did you want?"
I let my eyes stray over Nikolai's arm before I forced myself to look at him. "Did you know that when you turn eighteen in foster care, on that actual day, the state hands you a few bucks and sends you on your way? If you're lucky enough to have belongings, they give you a garbage bag or spare box for you to put them in." I couldn't help the anger that bubbled up as I recalled the moment where I’d been discarded like the garbage that had belonged in the trash bag I’d been given.
Nikolai's eyes softened but luckily, he didn't respond with useless apologies. "No, I didn't know that," he murmured.
"That was what I wanted. To never be left standing at the corner of a couple of no-name streets in a place I'd never truly been able to call home with a fucking garbage bag carrying shit that other people had gotten for me. The second I realized that I had a chance to be like Clifton Hayes, that was all it took. But I didn't want a handout. I didn't want the job just because he knew Patricia."
"You wanted to earn it," Nikolai offered.
I nodded. "After that, I worked my ass off to get my GED. Patricia didn't live long enough to see that happen, but I promised her I was going to go to college. She helped me with the application and paperwork for financial aid. College was everything I expected it to be. I had to work twice as hard as everyone else to get equal grades. But no one knew about my learning challenges. I wanted it to be an even playing field because that was what it would be like after school. As soon as I began my studies, I knew it wouldn't be enough to get me where I wanted to go. To get me into the world of Clifton Hayes."
"So you went on to Harvard," Nikolai said.
"It was a whole new life. Going from small-town Kansas to big-city Boston. But I loved it. For the first time, I felt like I fit somewhere. There were a few times that I was tempted to contact Cliff to tell him of my progress, but I couldn't do it."
"Why not?"
“Because I didn’t want to be tempted to take any handout he might offer me out of pity. I wanted nothing more than to work for TDS, but I wanted it to be on my terms.”
"So what did you do?"
"I began studying things beyond what I was learning in school. I read everything I could about Cliff and his business. I studied the market and his competitors. I spent years analyzing the trends in real estate development. I started to see opportunities coming down the pipe before they actually did."
"What does that mean?" Nikolai asked.
"Real estate development is about knowing what people are going to want before they want it. You have to know which area of the city is going to be the next Soho or Tribeca. I was in my last year of grad school when I was sure I’d found that area. I took a chance and began interacting with the community of people that was already there. Especially the shop owners and residents of the small apartment complexes. After graduation, I moved to the neighborhood to ingratiate myself even further into it so I’d know who would be willing to sell and who’d need bigger incentives. About six months after I moved, I saw the trend that I’d predicted start to shift my way, so I reached out to Cliff and made him an offer he couldn't refuse."
"What was the offer?"
"I guaranteed him I could get everyone in a one-block area to sell to him. It was a perfect piece of property for building the luxury apartments and commercial storefronts that TDS is known for. I basically told Cliff I could negotiate the deal for him. If it fell through, he wouldn't have to pay me anything. If I succeeded, I wanted ten percent of the deal." I laughed and shook my head. "God, I had a lot of balls."
"But he took you up on it," Nikolai said.
I nodded. "He did. While the deal was huge for me, it was chump change for a guy like Cliff. I'm sure my relationship with Patricia played a big part in his willingness to take