Chapter 5 - The Professor Who Chose Me
I recognized the handwriting.
Not immediately.
That would have been easier.
Instead, recognition arrived slowly, like a shadow moving across a room.
The narrow capital T.
The strange backward hook on the letter y.
The way the writer pressed too hard at the end of a sentence.
I had seen it on hundreds of dissertation pages.
Dominic noticed my expression.
“You know it.”
I stared at the note.
“No.”
“Casey.”
“I mean… maybe.”
Daniel leaned forward.
“Who?”
I sat down.
“My advisor.”
No one spoke.
“Professor Nathaniel Feldman.”
Dominic's voice hardened.
“The man you were going to call.”
“Yes.”
Daniel immediately opened his laptop.
“Tell me everything.”
“There isn't much to tell.”
“There is always more than people think.”
I looked toward the city beyond the windows.
Professor Feldman had been one of the reasons I chose Columbia.
Internationally respected.
Published in six languages.
Consulted by governments, banks and arbitration courts.
When I was twenty-three, he had read an obscure undergraduate paper I submitted to a conference and personally contacted me.
He told me my mind worked differently.
At the time, it felt like someone had opened a door.
I had never considered that the door might lead somewhere he had already chosen.
“He recruited me,” I said.
“When?” Dominic asked.
“Three years ago.”
“Before your doctorate?”
“Yes.”
“What did he know about your finances?”
“Everything required for financial aid.”
“Your mother?”
My stomach tightened.
“Yes.”
“Her illness?”
“Yes.”
Daniel stopped typing.
“Casey, did he help you get the restaurant job?”
I looked at him.
“No.”
Then I remembered.
Or thought I remembered.
I had mentioned struggling for work during office hours.
Feldman had told me one of his former students knew the restaurant’s owner.
Two days later, Maison Étoile called.
I felt sick.
“I think he did.”
Dominic's expression became unreadable.
“He put you there.”
“We don't know that.”
“He studied your work.”
“Yes.”
“He knew you needed money.”
“Yes.”
“He connected you to the restaurant where the agreement would appear.”
My heartbeat accelerated.
“Yes.”
“And someone deliberately placed you at my table.”
Daniel finished for him.
“This was an experiment.”
The word landed badly.
I stood.
“No.”
“Casey—”
“No. I’m not somebody’s experiment.”
Dominic’s voice softened.
“That doesn't mean you chose any of this.”
I hated how close that came to what my mother would have said.
Daniel searched Feldman’s name.
“He advises several arbitration groups.”
I moved beside him.
“That's normal.”
“Also Helix Crown.”
My stomach dropped.
“What?”
He rotated the laptop.
There it was.
An archived financial disclosure.
Professor Nathaniel Feldman — External Linguistic and Treaty Consultant, Helix Crown Partners.
The dates went back four years.
One year before he recruited me.
Dominic swore quietly.
I couldn't speak.
Every office conversation replayed differently.
Every research suggestion.
Every question about my thesis.
Every encouragement to focus on treaty asymmetry.
Feldman hadn't simply taught me the tools that discovered the trap.
He may have shaped the exact expertise necessary to validate it.
“Why?” I whispered.
Dominic answered.
“To prove the contract could survive expert scrutiny.”
I turned.
“What?”
“You recognized the flaw.”
“Exactly.”
“If he intended the flaw to remain hidden, why put you in front of it?”
Daniel understood first.
“Because she wasn't supposed to expose it publicly.”
I looked between them.
Daniel continued.
“She was supposed to notice it privately.”
“Then what?” I asked.
Dominic stared at the article.
“Then someone would correct whatever you found.”
I felt cold.
I had not ruined Feldman’s plan by discovering the trap.
I had been part of quality control.
An unwilling reviewer.
A test subject placed close enough to the agreement to identify weaknesses.
“What would have happened afterward?”
Nobody answered.
They did not need to.
Maybe nothing.
Maybe Feldman expected me to return to Columbia believing I had overheard an ordinary mistranslation.
Maybe I was never supposed to understand the entire structure.
Or maybe someone intended to make sure I could never explain it.
My phone vibrated.
Professor Feldman.
His name appeared on the screen.
No one moved.
Dominic said quietly, “Answer.”
I did.
“Professor?”
“Casey.”
His voice sounded exactly as it always did.
Warm.
Measured.
Slightly distracted, as though he had three books open while speaking.
“I've been trying to reach you.”
“No, you haven't.”
A pause.
“You sound upset.”
“I’m having an unusual morning.”
“So I gathered.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“Did you get me the job at Maison Étoile?”
Silence.
There it was.
A tiny pause.
Too tiny for most people.
Not for me.
“I recommended you.”
“To whom?”
“An acquaintance.”
“Mr. Laurent?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you needed work.”
Dominic watched me.
I asked, “Did you know Dominic Russo would be there last night?”
Another pause.
“Casey, where are you?”
“Answer me.”
His voice changed.
Not much.
But the professor disappeared.
Something harder took his place.
“You should come to campus.”
“No.”
“We need to talk.”
“We’re talking.”
“Not on the phone.”
I glanced at Dominic.
He shook his head.
I ignored him.
“Did you write the German appendix?”
Silence.
Long this time.
Then Feldman sighed.
“You were always too fast.”
My blood turned cold.
Dominic's expression hardened.
“So you did.”
“I improved it.”
“You created a trap.”
“I created an instrument.”
“For stealing a company.”
“You are simplifying something complex.”
“You always said people hide bad arguments behind the word complex.”
Another pause.
To my surprise, he laughed.
“See? You did learn something.”
Anger burned through the fear.
“You used me.”
“No, Casey.”
“Yes.”
“I prepared you.”
“For what?”
“To see what everyone else missed.”
My voice shook.
“Why?”
“Because I needed proof.”
“Proof of what?”
“That modern corporate structures remain vulnerable to treaty language written seventy years ago.”
“This is a dissertation experiment to you?”
“At first.”
I closed my eyes.
“What did it become?”
“Something much larger.”
Dominic stepped closer, listening.
Feldman continued.
“Dominic Russo’s empire sits at the intersection of logistics, ports, property and international shipping. Whoever controls it possesses extraordinary influence.”
“Victoria?”
“A useful shareholder.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“And you?”
I asked.
Feldman chuckled.
“I have never cared about owning companies.”
“Then what do you want?”
“Leverage.”
“Over whom?”
“Everyone who uses them.”
The scope suddenly felt larger than Dominic and Victoria.
Larger than thirty-two million dollars.
I remembered the ports referenced in the contract.
New York.
New Jersey.
Baltimore.
Chicago.
European terminals.
A logistics network.
“What exactly moves through those ports?” I asked Dominic.
His eyes narrowed.
Feldman answered first.
“Everything.”
Food.
Medicine.
Industrial components.
Government cargo.
Information disguised as commerce.
Control of logistics was not merely control of trucks and warehouses.
It was control over what arrived, what waited, and what disappeared into delay.
“You’re insane,” I whispered.
“No. I am practical.”
“You threatened my mother.”
“No.”
That answer came instantly.
I froze.
“What?”
“I have never threatened Mary.”
Dominic and Daniel exchanged looks.
“Then who sent the photographs?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe you?”
“No. I expect you to think.”
His voice softened.
“Someone else discovered my project.”
“Who?”
“That is why you must come to campus.”
“Tell me now.”
“I can't.”
“Why?”
“Because your phone is compromised.”
My eyes moved toward Dominic.
Feldman said one final sentence.
“And Casey?”
“Yes?”
“Whatever Dominic Russo has told you, understand this: the most dangerous person in this story is not me.”
The call ended.
Daniel immediately began tracing it.
Dominic looked furious.
But something else bothered me.
Feldman could have lied about threatening Mom.
Yet his denial sounded different from everything else.
Immediate.
Almost offended.
I picked up the photographs again.
The image of my mother leaving dialysis.
Then I noticed something in the background.
A reflection in the clinic window.
A woman.
Tall.
Dark coat.
Blonde hair.
Daniel enlarged the photograph on his phone.
Dominic stared.
His face changed.
I knew before he spoke.
“Victoria.”
And for the first time, we realized Dominic’s wife might not merely have been manipulated.
May you like
She might have been playing a game of her own.
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