Original language: English
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Eduardo held the photograph carefully, as if the aged paper could fall apart between his fingers at any moment.
It was from his college days.
A smile too young for someone who already knew hunger. His eyes still carried that naïve kind of hope — the belief that faith and hard work would always be enough.
Back then, "having nothing" often meant exactly that: nowhere to sleep. Nothing to eat. No certainty about how he would pay the next semester's tuition.
And yet, there had been energy.
Long hours of studying.
Nights spent in the library.
Then work. Any work.
Cooking in a low-cost restaurant. Waiting tables. Cleaning floors. Washing dishes until the skin on his fingers cracked. Sleeping in improvised rooms, sometimes on borrowed couches.
Life had never been easy for Eduardo.
His father had died young. Too young. It would always have been too young.
He still remembered the hollow feeling at the funeral — not only because of the loss, but because he suddenly understood that childhood had ended that day. His mother, alone, with five children. The look in her eyes that afternoon never left him: it wasn't despair.
It was determination.
That was where he inherited his strength.
His discipline.
His silence.
The ability to swallow pain and keep moving.
But some things cannot be swallowed.
Some things remain.
Fragments.
Sounds.
Images that return without warning.
He placed the photo on the side table and leaned back into the leather armchair of his spacious apartment in São Paulo, overlooking Avenida Paulista. The contrast between past and present felt almost aggressive.
The apartment was impeccably organized. Clean style. Minimal furniture. Everything functional. Everything deliberate.
The office was structured with wide monitors and technical plans arranged by priority. The living room featured state-of-the-art gaming equipment. The king-size bed was perfectly aligned, pillows arranged as if they were never meant to be disturbed.
And the armchair.
Near the window.
His favorite place.
There he read. Thought. Drank wine. Planned.
And avoided.
Eduardo had learned early how to be alone.
Or at least how to appear comfortable with it.
Coming from poverty, he had started working as a child. That meant sleeping in other people's homes, depending on strangers, accepting situations he preferred not to revisit in memory. Some experiences had been good. Others left invisible scars.
The result was simple: trust little.
Need little.
Feel little.
While he avoided personal connections, his professional life flourished. High-profile projects. Innovative structural solutions. His name began circulating among major engineering firms and government agencies.
Until that meeting.
That morning, federal government officials had received him in Brasília. The invitation was straightforward: lead a project in Northern Brazil. It wasn't clear whether the demand came strictly from the federal government or if private interests were also involved.
They said little.
They focused only on the need to connect two points separated by the Rio Negro.
A multimillion-dollar structure.
In the middle of nowhere.
No clear justification.
No detailed timeline.
No explanation for the urgency.
But there was urgency.
And money.
A lot of money.
Eduardo submitted a bold proposal. High numbers — high enough that they might refuse. He didn't want to cross the country for something so nebulous. Yet he didn't want to decline either.
The response came too quickly.
Accepted.
No negotiation.
No revisions.
As if the amount were irrelevant.
That unsettled him more than any number could.
And then the deadline.
Ten days to assemble a team and depart.
They would fly in a Brazilian Air Force aircraft to Manaus, then continue by car to the construction site — which, apparently, had already begun preliminary infrastructure work.
Eduardo did not like driving.
He never had.
He owned a fully equipped Mustang 500 but rarely touched the steering wheel. He had a private driver. Lourenço. Discreet. Reliable. The first name he added to the list.
His fingers drifted to the scar on his left arm.
An automatic gesture.
The skin there was slightly rigid.
The memory surfaced in flashes.
Metal.
Noise.
Shattering glass.
And silence.
A silence that felt too heavy.
He closed his eyes briefly.
Breathed in.
Stood up and walked to the bar cart, taking a calming pill. It wasn't a habit. But sometimes it was necessary.
He put on soft music.
The sound filled the apartment without truly occupying space.
He returned to the armchair and opened his laptop. Began outlining the technical strategy for the bridge. Deep foundations. Geotechnical analysis. River logistics.
Focus.
Control.
Always control.
Because when control fails...
His jaw tightened.
The last time he had lost control had changed everything.
Since then, he preferred to be the passenger.
He planned to finish the Northern project as quickly as possible.
Execute.
© 2026 Ana Ejimonye. Published by The Insight Docket under the author's contributor publishing licence.