ARCHITECT

Marcus Vale is twenty-six years old, broke, and out of options. His mother's medication costs more than his job pays, and a man named Hector Ruiz has a napkin with a diagram on it. The arrangement is simple. The corner in Astoria runs clean, nobody gets hurt, and the money actually works.

Marcus is good at it. That's the problem. He's good at the organizing, the systems, the logic of keeping everything from touching everything else. By the time he understands what he's actually building, he's already too deep inside it to see the shape from outside. He meets Bracco, who tells him he hasn't built anything yet. He meets Camille, who asks him a question he doesn't answer for nine years. The foundation is poured without him fully deciding to pour it.