Chapter 7: The Signing of the New Destiny
The second hand on my phone ticked by with relentless coldness. 3:00… 2:59… 2:58… The sound was almost audible in the sepulchral silence of the office. Hassan al-Mansuri stared at the paper on his desk as if it were a pact with the devil, though in reality it was his only way out of the hell he himself had dug.
“Graciela…” Hassan said in a whisper, without taking his eyes off the contract. “Do you accept this? Do you accept this position?”
My mother stepped forward. She was no longer the woman who shrank herself so as not to obstruct the executives. She smoothed her hair, wiped away a stray tear, and fixed her gaze on the man who had humiliated her for half a decade.
“I accept, sir,” she replied, her voice not trembling once. “Not for the money, but because my son is right. You need someone to tell you the truth to your face, and I know this company better than you do, because I’ve cleaned it up from the ground up.”
Hassan let out a long sigh, a sound that held years of arrogance finally deflating. With a hand still trembling from the lingering adrenaline and fear, he picked up his heavy, solid gold pen. The nib grazed the paper. He hesitated for a second, glancing at the digital recorder that sat like a live grenade on his desk.
Then he signed.
The stroke of his signature was swift, almost violent, like the end of an era. He signed each of the copies. The Al-Mansuri Industries stamp struck the paper with a dry echo that reverberated off the marble walls.
“Neo,” Hassan said, dropping the pen and leaning back in his chair, exhausted. “You’ve just taught me the most expensive and probably the most valuable lesson of my entire life.”
“And what lesson is that, sir?” I asked, slowly and precisely putting the signed copies in my backpack.
“True intelligence,” he admitted, staring into space, “has nothing to do with the zip code where you’re born or how many zeros are in your checking account. It’s about what you do with the opportunities you create for yourself when the world closes all its doors on you.”
I turned off the timer on my phone. I put away the recorder. But before turning around, I leaned across the desk one last time.
—Welcome to the 21st century, Mr. al-Mansuri. Here, talent no longer asks permission to enter.
Hassan burst out laughing. But this time it wasn’t that mocking, metallic laugh from the beginning. It was a genuine laugh, almost one of relief, the laugh of a man who had just lost a fortune but who, for the first time in years, felt he had recovered a piece of his soul.
—You’re terrifyingly brilliant, kid.
“No, sir,” I corrected him with a smile. “I just prepared better than you.”
