Chapter 443 | Due Diligence

Chapter 443: 443 | Due Diligence

Thursday, 2:47 PM. Kean Coffee.

Jordan sat in the corner booth with his back to the wall because Maya had drilled into him that you don’t sit with your spine toward a door, and the lesson had stuck somewhere between the third rib bruise and the fifth. The chair was one of those reclaimed wood numbers that cost more than his high school desk, and the latte in front of him had foam art depicting what might have been a swan or might have been a middle finger depending on your relationship with the barista.

Eight dollars. For coffee. With a bird on it.

Three months ago he would have paid twelve if a pretty girl smiled at him while taking the order. Progress.

The cafe smelled like vanilla and pretension, which tracked for a spot three blocks from Pacific Crest where students came to study in public so other students could see them studying. Two girls at the window table kept glancing at him over their MacBooks, and six weeks ago that attention would have made him spiral into a sweat-soaked panic about whether his shirt was stained or his hair was wrong or his face was somehow offensive to the general public.

Now he just noted the glances, filed them under "irrelevant," and went back to staring at the door.

Chloe had briefed him that morning while he made eggs. She’d been sitting on his counter with her legs crossed, wearing one of his shirts and nothing else, ticking off points on her fingers like a lawyer prepping a witness for hostile examination.

"She’s going to ask about money. Don’t volunteer details. Don’t lie, but don’t give her the full picture. And for God’s sake, don’t mention the System."

Jordan had nodded.

"I mean it. Not even a hint. Not even if she corners you. Cassie reads people the way I read spreadsheets, and if you give her a thread she will pull until your entire sweater unravels and you’re standing there naked wondering why you ever thought you could lie to a woman who trades derivatives for a living."

"I can lie."

"You can lie to normal people. Cassie isn’t normal people. Cassie is what happens when you give a shark an MBA and teach it to walk on land."

Jordan had kissed her forehead and told her he’d be fine, and Chloe had looked at him with the expression she reserved for moments when she wanted to believe him but couldn’t quite get there.

Now, sitting alone with thirteen minutes until his sister arrived, Jordan understood why.

His knee bounced under the table. He made it stop. Then it started again.

The door opened at 2:53 and a blonde girl walked in wearing a PCA volleyball jacket, and Jordan’s heart rate spiked for no reason before settling back down when he confirmed it wasn’t Cassie. The blonde ordered something with seventeen syllables and extra foam and left without looking at him.

2:56. Four minutes.

Jordan pulled up the System app and checked his status out of habit, the way some people checked their stocks or their horoscope. Chemistry with Chloe holding at 100%. Chemistry with Kumiko at 47%. Quest ticker for StellarNote showing forty-seven hours until the Friday debut. Balance sitting at a number that still didn’t feel real when he looked at it.

No notifications. No warnings. No helpful sarcastic commentary about his impending interrogation.

Thanks for nothing, magic phone.

He closed the app and put the device face down on the table, and that was when the door opened again.

3:00 PM on the dot.

Cassie walked in wearing a charcoal blazer over a cream silk blouse, her black bob catching the afternoon light in a way that made her look like she’d been lit by a professional photographer. Her heels clicked against the hardwood, three sharp beats that silenced the ambient conversation for half a second before the cafe remembered it had other customers. She scanned the room the way a general scans a battlefield, found Jordan in the corner, and smiled.

The smile didn’t reach her eyes.

"Little bro."

She crossed to the counter and ordered a cortado without looking at the menu, paid with a card from a wallet that cost more than Jordan’s monthly food budget used to be, and collected her drink in under ninety seconds. Then she slid into the seat across from him with the grace of someone who had been photographed doing exactly this motion for a financial magazine spread.

"You look good." She sipped her cortado. "Really good."

The words came out warm. Approving. The kind of thing a sister should say to a brother she hadn’t seen in six weeks.

Except Cassie’s eyes were doing something else entirely. They tracked across his face, down to his shoulders, back up to his jaw, cataloging the changes the way she would catalog a company before deciding whether to acquire it or let it bleed.

"Thanks. You look like you just walked out of a boardroom."

"Because I did. Client dinner at seven, so I’m fitting you in." She smiled again, and this time it almost reached her eyes. "How are classes?"

"Fine. Econ’s boring. Sociology’s interesting. Professor Delgado has opinions about capitalism."

"Shocking, in California." Cassie set her cortado down on its saucer with a soft clink. "The apartment?"

"Good. Clean."

"I noticed. When did you start caring about throw pillows?"

"They came with the couch."

"They didn’t come with the couch. I saw that couch in December. It had a permanent ass groove and what I’m fairly certain was a fossilized pizza crust welded to the armrest."

Jordan took a sip of his swan-bird latte to buy himself three seconds. "Chloe has opinions about interior design."

"Chloe has opinions about everything, from what I can tell." Cassie’s tone remained light, conversational, the verbal equivalent of a velvet glove over an iron fist. "How are Mom and Dad handling the news?"

"Mom’s planning a nursery. Dad gave me a lecture about prenups."

"Good advice."

"That’s what I said."

The small talk continued for another two minutes. Safe topics. Familiar territory. Jordan felt his shoulders starting to relax, his guard starting to drop, and some distant part of his brain recognized that this was exactly what Cassie wanted. She was a warm bath you didn’t realize was slowly getting hotter until you were being boiled alive.

Then she pivoted.

"So." Cassie crossed her legs and leaned back in her chair, coffee cradled in both hands. "Nova Network. Tell me about it."