Chapter 5: The Quiet Rise
421 Words
Two weeks passed.
From the outside, Netzone Café still looked the same.
But inside, change had begun.
New high-speed routers quietly replaced the old ones.
The broken air conditioner? Replaced.
The backroom that had once stored broken CPUs? Now renovated into a private student study lounge with free coffee and snacks.
Ate Glenda stood in the middle of it all, stunned.
“I… don’t know what’s happening,” she whispered. “Some investor just approved all these upgrades. No name, no face. They said I could keep running everything like before.”
She turned to Tredy, who stood casually near the entrance.
“I feel like I’m in a dream.”
Tredy simply smiled. “Maybe someone just saw how much heart this place has.”
Ate Glenda wiped her eyes and nodded. “Whoever they are… they saved me.”
---
Later that day, Leira Mendez sat at the café, sipping her usual iced coffee, flipping through her tablet.
Something felt off.
“This place used to smell like sweat and spoiled snacks,” she muttered to her friend. “Now it feels like a tech startup.”
She spotted Tredy across the room, laughing with a few undergrads, helping them troubleshoot their coding projects.
He was… different.
Less tense. More confident. Still in simple clothes—but somehow, he didn’t look poor anymore.
And that bothered her.
---
Across town, in a sleek office tower…
Marco’s father, Vicente Villanueva, stood in front of a giant whiteboard filled with financial maps and red Xs.
“Who’s buying up our partner shares?” he demanded. “First our suppliers back out, then the bank freezes our credit line—now our land permits in East Gran Santiago are ‘under review’?”
One of his assistants whispered, “Sir… the documents trace back to a firm called Salcor Holdings. Based offshore. But there’s almost no public info about them.”
“Salcor…” Vicente muttered. “I’ve never heard of them.”
His phone buzzed.
Text from a private number:
> “Some empires fall not from fire... but from silence. Watch your walls.”
Vicente paled.
---
Back at the café, Tredy scrolled through an encrypted app.
His attorney had just sent an update.
> Salcor Holdings now controls 22% of Villaridge Development Corp through indirect channels.
He looked up as Leira passed his table.
She stopped.
“You’ve changed,” she said suddenly.
Tredy met her gaze calmly. “Maybe I’ve just stopped pretending.”
---
© Treloce Amaris
- Writer
