Page 1 of Ruthless Arrangement

CHAPTERONE

Lea

Most people seepower in Nico Varela’s smile; I see the architect of my father’s destruction.

The grainy photograph, blown up on my laptop screen, shows the exact moment he’d completed some deal, his face contorted with a smug, controlled curve of the lips that promises ruin disguised as opportunity.

Rain lashes against the cheap glass of my apartment window, blurring the gritty Chicago skyline. The distorted view mirrors the confusion churning inside me.This city,my father used to say,operates in the shadows. Power isn’t loud here, Lea. It’s silent. It waits.He learned that lesson the hard way.

My fingers touch the cool metal of the laptop. Tonight isn’t just the eve of my first day at the Chicago Investigative Journal; it is the eve of battle. Packing my bag feels less like preparing for work, more like donning armor. Laptop, my sword. Notepads, my shield. Pens, my daggers. Each item, carefully selected and placed into the worn leather satchel that belonged to my father. A relic from his time at the Journal, before Varela, before the silence.

The Journal. It isn’t just a building downtown, a prestigious byline I’d chased through four years of journalism school. It is the arena where my father’s reputation was destroyed. He’d gotten too close. Asked the wrong questions about the network of influence Varela commanded. It was a web spun through politics, business, and the city’s murky underworld. Then, suddenly, sources dried up, stories were killed, and my father, once a celebrated investigative reporter, found himself sidelined, discredited, broken. He never named Varela outright, not in the aftermath, but the fear in his eyes whenever that name surfaced spoke volumes.Some men cast long shadows, Lea. Don’t get lost in them.

I slam the laptop shut, the click loud in the small space. My apartment, usually a sanctuary of books and half-finished articles, feels tight, the walls pressing in. The rain intensifies, drumming a relentless rhythm against the fire escape. This isn’t just about vindicating my father. It is about finishing what he started. It is about dragging the shadows into the light. Tomorrow, I walk into the place that broke him.This time, the story won’t end with silence.

* * *

The ChicagoInvestigative Journal newsroom hits me like a fucking freight train. A storm of ringing phones, clattering keyboards, and overlapping conversations fills the vast, open-plan space, housed in what looks like a converted warehouse. Exposed brick walls climb toward high ceilings crisscrossed with industrial ductwork. Cheap fluorescent lights cast a harsh glare on the busy mess below. It smells of old paper, burnt coffee, and something unexplainable, like a hunter’s energy that hums beneath the surface noise. Desks are crammed together, islands adrift in a sea of discarded coffee cups, overflowing in-trays, and monitors displaying scrolling news feeds. Photos of past triumphs, exposés that had felled mayors and exposed corruption, line a far wall, a gallery of reporting coups.

“Song! Wells wants you. Now,” a harried-looking assignment editor commands, pointing a nicotine-stained finger toward a glass-walled office at the far end without breaking stride.

So much for easing in.I adjust the strap of my father’s satchel on my shoulder, take a breath, and navigate the maze of desks, sharply aware of the curious glances flicking my way. My skin prickles.The new kid. Fresh meat.

Harrison Wells’s office is proof of controlled chaos. Stacks of newspapers tilt precariously, threatening an avalanche onto the floor; manila folders overflow from every surface; the air hangs thick and acrid with the aroma of stale cigar smoke. Wells, a well-set man in his late fifties, himself looks like he slept in his clothes with his rumpled shirt, tie askew, silver hair defying gravity. He sits hunched behind a massive, cluttered desk, peering over reading glasses perched on his nose. His eyes, magnified and piercing, size me up with weary cynicism as I enter.

He doesn’t offer a handshake, doesn’t waste time on pleasantries. He gestures toward the worn visitor’s chair opposite him. “Sit.” His voice is gravelly, impatient.

I sit, placing my satchel by my feet.

He grunts, shuffling through a pile of papers before finally extracting a thick, battered manila folder. He tosses it onto the desk. It lands with a thud. The sound seems to suck the air from the room and from my lungs.

“Nico Varela,” he rasps, tapping the folder with a blunt finger. “Word is, you know the name.”

My insides hammers, a violent, thrilled surge colliding with a wave of pure, raw terror.Varela. On my first day.It is what I’d hoped for, prayed for, maneuvered for through application essays and interview answers hinting at my interest in Chicago’s power structures. And yet, the reality of it, the sheer nerve of being handed this assignment, now, feels like a trap sprung too soon. A cold dread washes over the initial thrill.This is too perfect. Why?I force my expression into neutral territory, a mask of professional interest.

“I know of him,” I say, keeping my voice steady. “Everyone in Chicago does. Owner of Club Purgatorio, major political donor, incredibly well-connected.”

Wells snorts, a humorless sound. “Don’t bullshit me, Song. Your senior project paper was on navigating hidden power structures. You cited three articles your father wrote for this paper before he…” He trails off, waving a dismissive hand. “You didn’t just stumble in here wanting to cover city council meetings.”

He leans forward, the cynicism in his eyes hardening into something pointed. “Let’s get one thing straight. Your Northwestern degree means jack shit here. This,” he taps the Varela file again, harder this time, “isn’t some academic exercise. This isn’t play-acting journalism where you write a scathing piece and get an A. People who poke around Varela have a bad habit of disappearing. Or finding their careers torched.”

His gaze holds mine, intense, steady.He knows.

“Varela eats people like you for breakfast,” he continues, his voice dropping lower, gravel turning to granite. “He’s smarter, richer, and more ruthless than anyone you’ve ever met. He has judges in his pocket, cops on his payroll, and eyes everywhere. You think you’re walking into a story? You’re walking into a goddamn minefield.”

The warnings land like body blows, each one echoing my father’s hushed fears. But mixed with the fear is a fierce, stubborn determination.This is it. The chance.

“Why me?” I ask bluntly. “My first day. This feels…loaded.”

Wells leans back, the springs in his old chair groaning in protest, folding his hands behind his head. “Let’s just say, you weren’t my choice.”

The admission jolts me. “What?”

“Got the call yesterday,” he says, his gaze drifting toward the ceiling. “From the top floor. Said you were ambitious, hungry, had the right background. Said to give you Varela.” He shrugs, a gesture heavy with unspoken frustration. “Publisher wants you on this, Song. Don’t ask me why.”

He pushes the folder across the desk. The name NICO VARELA is scrawled in faded black marker. It feels heavier than it looks, pregnant with secrets and danger.

“That’s it. Go investigate. Report back to me at least once a week onallthe events in details. And try not to get yourself killed.”

---