By 2:00 p.m., the board removed him—not with shouting or fury, but with the smooth precision of people who had rehearsed cutting dead weight.
By 3:00 p.m., reporters swarmed the sidewalk like insects after rain. Microphones were shoved toward his face, questions flying like small, sharp objects: Did you cheat the system? How long have you been hiding this? Who else was involved?
By 6:00 p.m., the word arrest stopped being speculation and became reality—typed, signed, and stamped.
By 9:30 p.m., his attorney said quietly, “You turn yourself in tomorrow morning. It’s the only option that doesn’t look like you’re running.”
So Andrew Cole came here.
He returned to the building where everything had begun fifteen years earlier—when the glass still gleamed and his conscience hadn’t yet learned how flexible it could be. He remembered standing on this same pavement once, younger and starving for success, convinced that wealth wasn’t just power but protection. Back then, he’d walked through those doors believing ambition justified everything, even turning people into rungs on a ladder.
Now, he sat on the curb like a man waiting to disappear.