The atmosphere on the street seemed to curdle, thick with a tension that made the air difficult to breathe. Harry Lewis stood frozen, his eyes wide and unblinking, fixed on the scene unfolding before him with a kind of paralyzed horror. It was a tableau that defied every law of physics and society he had ever bothered to learn. The cognitive dissonance was so violent it felt as though a sledgehammer had been taken to the foundation of his worldview.
“Mr. Zane... President Zane...” Harry Lewis stammered, the words tumbling out as a breathless whisper, barely audible over the rush of blood in his ears.
He watched, his mind reeling, as the titan of Northriver finance, a man who could bankrupt companies with a signature and shift the city's economy with a frown, bent his spine. It wasn’t a p
