What He doesn’t know I have

Common ground

"Sir, you need to sign in." The receptionist was already half out of her chair, one hand reaching for the phone on her desk. "Sir..."

"I need five minutes with Robert Thompson." Chris kept walking, past the desk, toward the bank of elevators, his pulse hammering so loud he could barely hear himself talk. "Tell him it's about Michael Scott. He'll know what that means."

"Sir, I need you to stop right..."

He didn't stop. The elevator doors were open, and he stepped inside, and he was reaching for a floor button at random when a security guard came around the corner fast, hand already out. "Hey! Hey, you can't..."

The doors started to close. The guard got an arm in just in time, forcing them back open, and then there were two of them, hands on Chris's jacket, hauling him back out into the lobby hard enough that he stumbled into the marble floor, catching himself against the reception desk.

"I'm not trying to hurt anyone!" His voice cracked, too loud, echoing off the glass. "I just need to talk to him! Please, just, just tell him my name. Chris Scott. He'll want to hear this, I swear to god he will..."

"That's enough." The guard had a fistful of his jacket now, dragging him toward the doors. "You're leaving, right now, or I'm calling the police."

"Wait." A new voice, sharp, from across the lobby.

Everyone stopped. Robert was standing by the far elevator, a folder under one arm, staring at the commotion with an expression caught somewhere between irritation and something more careful. He didn't move for a second. Just looked at Chris, really looked, the kid red-faced and disheveled and clearly not some random nutcase off the street, clearly someone's son, with a face that looked enough like Katrina's that something clicked behind Robert's eyes.

"Let him go," Robert said.

"Sir, he just tried to force his way into the elevator..."

"I heard you. Let him go." Robert's voice left no room for negotiation. The guard released him, reluctant, and Chris staggered upright, breathing hard, straightening his jacket with shaking hands.

Robert didn't approach. He stood exactly where he was, the whole lobby watching now, phones half-raised, and studied Chris like he was trying to solve something. "You said Michael Scott," he said finally, quiet enough that it didn't carry. "What about him."

"Not here." Chris's voice was hoarse, raw from shouting. "Please. Not like this, with everyone watching. I'm not crazy. I just didn't know how else to get to you. I called your office twice this week. Nobody put me through."

Something shifted in Robert's face: not trust, not yet, but recognition of a desperation he understood a little too well. He glanced once at the security guard, at the gathering of stares around the lobby, and made a decision.

"There's a coffee place on 9th, off Tully Street," he said, low and fast. "Small. Nobody we know goes there. Thursday, ten in the morning. You come alone, and you come calm, not whatever this was. If I think for one second this isn't real, I walk out and you never get another chance." He was already turning away, already done. "Don't follow me out of this building."

Chris stood there in the wreckage of the lobby, his jacket torn at the collar, his hands still shaking, and watched Robert disappear into the elevator without looking back.

It wasn't until he was outside, sitting back in his car, that he let himself shake properly: adrenaline and fear and something close to relief all tangled together, the kind of trembling that came after doing something stupid and reckless and, somehow, exactly what needed doing.

Thursday, he thought, gripping the wheel. Just hold on until Thursday.

Chapter 7

Common Ground

The coffee shop was exactly as forgettable as Robert had promised: no white tablecloths, no hostess who knew anyone's name, just a cracked leather booth in the back corner and a barista who didn't look up twice. Chris understood immediately why he'd picked it.

Robert was already there when Chris walked in, a black coffee untouched in front of him, his eyes fixed on the door like he'd been watching it the whole time. He didn't stand when Chris approached. He just studied him, openly, the way you'd study something you weren't sure yet was a trap.

"I wasn't sure you'd actually come," Chris said, sliding into the booth across from him.

"I almost didn't." Robert's voice was flat, guarded. "Your father's son, reaching out to ask me for a meeting. Forgive me for wondering whose idea this actually was."

"It wasn't his idea. He doesn't know I'm here." Chris kept his hands folded on the table, deliberately calm, the way he'd practiced in the car on the way over. "He doesn't know about a lot of things I've been looking into, actually."

That got Robert's attention. He leaned back slightly, arms crossing. "Go on, then."

"My mother was married to him for almost twelve years." Chris's voice stayed even, but something underneath it had gone hard. "She's dying now. Hospice, weeks left, maybe less. And before she got sick, my father spent over a decade making sure she had nothing left of herself by the time he was done with her. Not money. Not confidence. Nothing." He met Robert's eyes. "I don't know exactly what he did to you and your company seven years ago. But I know what kind of man does it. I've lived in his house my whole life."

Robert was quiet for a long moment, recalibrating. "Why come to me with this. Why not just handle it yourself."

"Because I don't have what you have." Chris leaned forward slightly. "I have suspicions. Some financial records I shouldn't have access to, things that don't add up about how the company restructured after your bankruptcy. But I don't have the full picture, and I don't have the standing to make anyone listen if I went public with it alone. I'm nineteen, I'm his son, everyone would say I'm just an angry kid with a grudge." A pause. "You have motive everyone already understands. You have money now, apparently, and you clearly have a reason to want this to actually work, not just feel good for an afternoon."

Robert studied him for a long moment, something shifting behind his expression: not quite trust, not yet, but the beginning of calculation. "And if I say yes? What exactly do you think you're owed out of this?"

"I'm not doing this for a payout." Chris's jaw tightened. "I want him to lose the company the way you lost yours. I want him to understand what it feels like to have something taken apart slowly, the way he did it to her, instead of just writing one check and calling it remorse." His voice cracked slightly, the first real c***k in his composure all conversation. "She doesn't have time to see it happen. I know that. I'm not stupid enough to think this fixes anything for her. I just can't sit there and watch her die knowing he gets to keep everything."

Something in Robert's face softened, just barely: recognition, maybe, of a grief that ran parallel to his own even if the shape of it was different. "That's not nothing," he said quietly. "But you should know what you're walking into. This isn't going to be clean, and it isn't going to be fast. If you're doing this for closure, you're going to be disappointed."

"I'm not doing it for closure." Chris reached into his jacket and slid a folded set of papers across the table. "I'm doing it because somebody should. Here. This is what I have so far. I want to know if it's actually useful, or if I've been wasting the only time I had left with her chasing something that won't matter."

Robert didn't reach for the papers right away. He looked at Chris for a long moment instead, really looked at him, the way you look at someone you've decided, against your better judgment, to trust a little.

"Okay," he said finally, pulling the papers toward him. "Let's see what you've got."