Chapter 14 - The Leverage

Chapter 14: Chapter 14 - The Leverage

Jesse ended the call with Nolan and glanced at the time on his phone.

11:00 a.m.

On any other day, he’d have been at his desk for four hours already, buried in shipping manifests while Buster snored through his first coffee. Being three hours late would have given him a panic attack.

Today, he eased off the gas.

He wasn’t in a hurry. Everything he wanted from Andrew Hyland hinged on timing, and showing up early would ruin it.

He crossed the bridge into Manhattan, one hand on the wheel, the city glittering ahead of him like it had finally decided to notice he existed.

He was five minutes from Standard & Silk when his phone buzzed in the cup holder.

PEDRO – PORT NEWARK.

Jesse smiled. Right on time.

He tapped the screen. "Pedro. Talk to me."

"Jesse! Finally, man." Pedro’s voice crackled over the sound of forklifts and shouting in the background. "I’ve been calling your office line all morning. Nobody’s picking up. I figured I’d try your cell."

"What’s going on?"

"It’s the shipment. The Egyptian fabric. The Giza stuff for your fall collection."

Jesse knew exactly which fabric he meant. Giza 45. The rarest long-staple cotton in the world, grown on a narrow strip of land along the Nile and hand-finished into a silk blend so soft it felt like water. There were maybe a handful of suppliers on the planet who could produce it at the quality Standard & Silk needed.

It had taken Jesse eight months, forty-something emails, three late-night video calls and one very long conversation about the supplier’s grandson’s college applications to convince Mr. Hassan to sell to them at all.

"It’s sitting in a container on my dock," Pedro went on. "Customs is ready to clear it. But Hassan’s guy just called. He says he wants full payment now. Not net-thirty, not on delivery. Now. Or he’s selling the whole lot to some buyer in Milan who’s already waiting with cash."

"Milan," Jesse repeated.

"That’s what he said. And man, he sounded serious."

Jesse tapped his thumb against the steering wheel.

"Pedro, here’s the thing. I’m not the guy you should be calling anymore. You should be calling Rudy Mazer. He’s the new VP of Brand Operations and Supply Chain. This is his job now."

"Rudy who?"

"Rudy Mazer."

"I don’t have his number. I’ve never even heard of the guy." Pedro paused. "Wait, hold on. Someone from your office gave me a number yesterday. I called it twice this morning. Straight to voicemail both times."

Of course it was.

Rudy was probably still sleeping off the champagne from his promotion party.

Jesse let the silence stretch for a few seconds, just long enough to enjoy it.

"Okay," he said. "Give me thirty minutes. I’ll sort it out."

"Thirty?" Pedro laughed, but there was nothing funny in it. "Jesse, I don’t have thirty. Hassan’s guy gave me a deadline. You’ve got twenty minutes. After that, the container gets rerouted and that fabric’s gone."

"Twenty minutes."

"Twenty. I’m sorry, man. I gotta go."

The line went dead.

Jesse looked at the clock on the dashboard.

11:04.

He pressed down on the gas.

The Porsche surged forward like it had been waiting for permission. Jesse slid around a delivery van, cut between two cabs with inches to spare and took a corner so smoothly that a bike messenger actually stopped pedaling to stare.

Driving Mastery wasn’t just useful. It was fun.

---

His phone buzzed again as he turned onto the block where Standard & Silk’s glass tower stood.

BUSTER.

Jesse let it ring. It went to voicemail.

He pulled into the employee parking lot and slid the Porsche into an open spot right in front of the entrance. The spots near the door usually went to directors and above. Nobody had ever told Jesse he couldn’t park there. They’d just never imagined he’d need to.

He killed the engine and stepped out.

Every head in the lot turned.

Two women from marketing stopped mid-conversation by the revolving door. A guy in a tailored blazer froze with his vape halfway to his mouth.

They looked at the Porsche. Then at Jesse.

Then back at the Porsche, like the car might explain itself.

Jesse ignored them.

He leaned against the car door, tapped his voicemail and held the phone to his ear.

Buster’s voice came through, low and fast, like he was whispering from under his desk.

"Jesse, it’s me. Where the hell are you, man? Andrew’s been down here twice already. Twice! He never comes to the basement. He’s pissed. Like, throwing-things pissed. Whatever you’re doing, get here now. Or don’t come at all, honestly. Okay. Bye."

Jesse slid the phone into his pocket and smiled.

He walked through the revolving doors and past the elevator that went down to the basement.

He pressed the button for the executive floor instead.