Chapter 1: The Blueprint

“This blueprint is poorly designed. We can’t turn in something so shoddy, because if it’s used in construction, a building could collapse. I want an urgent meeting with the entire design and drafting staff.”

Joseph was furious with the entire staff.

Victor, his partner and friend, tried to calm him down, even though he was just as angry—if not more so—than Joseph, but he was managing to control himself a little better.

Just then, a cell phone rang.

-“Hi, honey.”

said Emily, Joseph’s girlfriend.

“What do you need?”

He didn’t even say hello; he didn’t understand why she was calling him all the time—her attitude was really getting on his nerves.

“I wanted to tell you that tonight we’re meeting with…”

-“I’m swamped here at the office. I’ll call you later.”

He hung up without bothering to say goodbye.

Emily was sometimes unbearable; she didn’t understand that there were times when he had to work and times when he needed some personal space.

They’d been dating for two years, and he was about to set a wedding date, but he wasn’t really convinced he wanted to go through with it.

He stopped thinking about his girlfriend as soon as he hung up and headed to a small auditorium;

still congratulating himself on having designed the meeting room for staff gatherings—after all, they really did have a lot of people working for them.

The secretaries were rushing around getting everything ready and hurrying even the last of the designers—they needed all the relevant staff to be gathered in less than five minutes.

When Joseph was in the office, everything became very difficult—he was a very difficult man to deal with.

It was much easier when Victor was the one stopping by.

Luckily, neither of them was around much, unless there was a project like the one currently underway—which was a mega-project.

These days, the entire staff was rushing around, praying there wouldn’t be any setbacks.

Once everyone was gathered, Victor began to speak. There was a very serious error in one of the blueprints; if it were implemented on the construction site, all their prestige would go down the drain, and they would lose much more than just their spotless reputation—they might even lose a fortune. Not everything they owned, since the two of them had invested in different companies, but they weren’t going to allow that company to crumble because of incompetent people.

“I’m not here to correct rookie mistakes. I want the person responsible for that design to resign, and let it be clear to him that he’ll never work as a designer at any company again. Of course, the head of that department will also have to resign for allowing that error to slip through.”

Victor said, trying not to lose his composure.

The meeting lasted nearly two hours, during which the entire staff was briefed on what was needed.

-“We’ve already had this briefing, and this is unheard of.”

That was all Joseph said; luckily, he reviewed everything very thoroughly for all the projects, because otherwise it would have been a total disaster.

“The meeting is over. All staff from the department where the error occurred should stay, along with all the architects and engineers from every department.”

Within two minutes, only 20 of the 60 people who were originally in the room remained.

The two CEOs’ bad mood was evident, and not even the engineers who failed to notice or properly review the work done by the newcomers were spared.

-Everyone thought that if it had made it that far, it was because someone had reviewed it beforehand and there were no errors.

said Victor, who was already fed up with repeating himself.

“You need to know that this can never happen again.”

Joseph added, thinking about firing the entire staff in that department.

“I want everything that comes to me to be flawless; I don’t want to have to start crunching numbers on something that caught my eye at first glance.”

-“It gets worse at every level.”

“Never take anything for granted.”

The partners continued talking among themselves.

The engineers and architects from other departments left, leaving 12 people behind, at which point tensions escalated, and Joseph asked an engineer, two architects, and the rest of the staff to resign.

Everyone knew him very well, and the management acknowledged their mistake—they had overlooked something essential.

Only one of the younger designers—perhaps because he didn’t know them well—dared to speak up.

“Excuse me, but this isn’t fair,”

He said quite calmly, even though he was actually very nervous.

“Tell me why you dare to speak to me,”

Joseph snapped at him rudely.

“I spotted the mistake and told my colleague about it, but he told me I was wrong. Then I talked to Oliver Rivera, who’s our immediate supervisor, and he replied that I’m just starting out, that without experience I couldn’t offer an opinion, and

I dared to speak with Architect Miller, who replied that if I was just out of the shell and wanted to keep my job, I should serve him coffee.

The three people he named were pale; it was true that this kid, who was a freshman in college, had spoken to them to correct a supposed mistake, and none of the three had paid any attention to what he said.

“How long have you been working here?”

Victor asked him.

“Two months, sir,”

Noah replied.

“And in just two months, you noticed the mistake? What are you majoring in? What year are you in?”

Joseph asked, with a cold stare.

“I’m a freshman in civil engineering, sir.”

“How did you realize the mistake?”

Noah turned pale and stammered, unable to get a single word out.

“Did you hack us to try to stand out?”

Oliver Rivera asked him.

“Are you crazy? You’re inefficient and you don’t take responsibility for your mistakes.”

Noah was furious, and even though that mistake caused him chest pain, he didn’t say much more than that.

“If you don’t want us to think what Oliver Rivera said, tell us how you figured it out.”

“Isn’t it enough that I figured it out?”

“No.”

Joseph said, thinking about filing a complaint against the boy.

If it was all because of that brat, he was going to pay dearly for it.

-“I’m sorry, sir, but I assure you that besides realizing it myself, I talked to three people about it, and none of them denied it.”

That’s true, Joseph thought.

“Leave me alone with this boy.”

he said suddenly.

He was a demanding and imposing man, but this boy—almost a child—didn’t seem afraid of him. And if he really was smart enough to realize that mistake and had the guts to bring it up with three different people, he’d figure it out; otherwise, he’d end up in jail that very day.

“I don’t like wasting time.”

Joseph was serious.

“Sir, I didn’t make that mistake—it was made by a colleague of mine who’s been working with you guys for much longer than I have. If you don’t like wasting time, have them check all the blueprints and calculations he did.”

Damn, this kid was right—I’d have to do that.

“I’ll do it, but I need to know how you figured it out.”

-“From my own experience.”

-“Where did you work before coming here?”

-“Nowhere. I’m on a three-month internship, sir.”

“Are you kidding me?”

-“No, sir.”

-“Explain to me, in plain language, how the hell you noticed that damn mistake.”

Joseph said, raising his voice and with not a shred of patience left.

-“I already told you it was from personal experience.”

"Look, kid, stop messing with me or you’ll end up in jail."

-That’s unfair.

-“Speak up.”

“First, I want to tell you that this is a personal matter, and I’d rather it not be made public.”

Joseph didn’t know what to think anymore when his phone rang.

-Hi, honey, you didn’t call me.

-“Do you have any idea what it means to be busy?”

He hung up, because otherwise he might have said things that could get him into a lot of trouble later.

It was true that even though his parents were pressuring him to get serious with Emily, they couldn’t force him to marry her, so he was dragging out their relationship. But right now, if she insisted and kept calling him, he’d end things and wouldn’t regret it—at that moment, she had no place or space in his life, and she had to understand that.

He was exhausted, and this was the last time he would ask the guy who claimed to be an intern.

“How did you find out?”

He was furious, and instead of speaking, he was roaring.

“My father made that same mistake at his company, and when the lawsuits came pouring in, he went bankrupt, sold it for next to nothing, and ended up committing suicide.”

He said, almost without a voice and with tears in his eyes.

His explanation was brief, but it was enough for Joseph to know he was telling the truth.

He waited a couple of minutes for the young man to calm down, then explained a little more clearly what he was talking about—he wanted to know more details.

“I went over the cause of the tragedy countless times, and it came down to a miscalculation from the very beginning—which then led to thousands of errors in materials, measurements, and everything else you can imagine.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too. He was an excellent civil engineer. I don’t understand why he trusted his people so much and didn’t double-check everything.”

-Sometimes things just can’t be explained.

-“That’s true. That’s why I keep checking everything. I hope one day to discover that the great Benjamin Lee wasn’t wrong—that it was sabotage, that something else happened.”

Benjamin Lee was a well-known engineer; he remembered that at that moment.

-“Do you have the documents and blueprints for that building?”

-“Of the building that collapsed? Yes, they’re at home, in what used to be his office inside the bunker—that’s what he used to call the mansion where we lived. My mother and I still live there; the house and a car are all we have left from better times.”

Joseph suddenly felt a little empathy for this deeply tormented young man; he knew the story and, of course, realized that his company had taken over this young man’s father’s company.

He knew it the moment the boy mentioned it.

He wasn’t going to tell him that his father’s company now belonged to him—not right now—though if he’d read any documents, he might already know.

“You tried to save my company, and I’ll always give you credit for that. If you’re interested, as of now, you’re officially on the team and serving as team leader.”

“Sir, I don’t have the knowledge to be a team leader.”

“You do, kid, you do.”

“Thank you. I hope I don’t let you down.”

“You won’t, believe me.”

Joseph already knew he was pressuring him. The thing was, whenever they took over another company because things weren’t going well for the others, he never stopped to think about what was behind it all. He remembered Benjamin Lee because he’d committed suicide shortly after going bankrupt; it was in the news. At first, it looked like murder, but the investigators never found a culprit and opted for the easy way out, saying it was suicide—it made for a more sensational story, required less work, and everything was believable.

The family was devastated, and no one else would investigate.

Noah returned to his office thinking about his father; it pained him to talk about him. He hadn’t been able to come to terms with his death, and if his father had them—his mother and him—Noah didn’t understand his final decision.