"As for my situation..."

Leo smiled.

"You’re a businessman. You should know better than anyone that the riskier the asset, the higher the potential return."

"Senator Warren wants you to control me, and Harrisburg wants me to fail."

"But what can they give you? All they can offer is the status quo—maintaining the old, inefficient, high-cost logistics system that shrinks your profits year after year."

"I, on the other hand, may be dangerous, but I can offer you a path to the future."

Leo leaned back and crossed his arms.

"Besides, Douglas, I have another gift for you."

"My auditing team is very diligent. While reviewing concrete supply contracts from the past few years, they discovered some very interesting coincidences."

"I’m sure that, even more than Harrisburg’s approval, you’d rather not see this report on the front page of the New York Times, correct?"

Morganfield stared at Leo.

After a long moment, the gloom on his face dissipated, replaced by a hearty laugh.

"Hahahahaha!"

"Excellent! A true lone wolf!"

"I like your guts—blackmailing someone while standing on the edge of a cliff."

"However, your price isn’t high enough."

His gaze suddenly sharpened.

"You’re too dangerous right now. You’re taking this five hundred million US Dollars, and most of it will be spent on your so-called ’community revitalization.’"

"You want to build low-income housing, start worker cooperatives, and hand out welfare to the poor."

"To me, these things are worthless. Harmful, even."

"They’ll drive up labor costs and eat up the city’s resources."

"Not to mention, this is a critical moment for the mid-term elections. Every single seat in Pennsylvania has Washington on edge. Senator Warren is an old friend of mine, and my political investment on Capitol Hill for decades."

"What you’re asking me to do is to betray him, to betray the entire Republican Party’s strategy in Pennsylvania, and instead support one of the Democrats."

Morganfield shook his head.

"This is a massive political pivot. It’s a huge gamble."

"Everything you just mentioned—lowering logistics costs, future business interests—that’s all business."

"Business is business, and politics is politics."

"Ordinary business profits aren’t enough for me to take such a huge risk and betray Warren."

Morganfield picked up his cigar again, but didn’t light it. He just toyed with it in his hand.

"I want more than just profit, Leo."

"What can you give me that would be worth making such a political decision for you?"

The air in the room grew still.

Leo looked at the shrewd old man before him and felt an unprecedented pressure.

Morganfield wasn’t just a businessman; he was part of this country’s power structure.

The price to make him switch sides was far greater than Leo had imagined.

Leo fell silent.

His mind raced, trying to find an alternative.

’Mr. President,’ Leo called out in his mind. ’Do we really have to go with him? He’s not the only oligarch in Pennsylvania. There are consortiums in Philadelphia. Can’t we find someone else?’

’I don’t want to negotiate with this old man anymore. His asking price is higher than I thought.’

Roosevelt’s voice quickly responded.

"We can’t switch, Leo."

"Why not?" Leo shot back. "There are so many rich people in this state. I refuse to believe no one is interested in five hundred million US Dollars."

"Because of geopolitics," Roosevelt explained. "Look at a map. You want to expand the Inland Port in Pittsburgh and dredge the Ohio River channel. Morganfield controls eighty percent of the wharf land and warehousing facilities along that river."

"He is the landlord here."

"If you go to the Philadelphia consortiums, Morganfield will use every means at his disposal to bring your project to a standstill. If you go to other smaller, local tycoons, they won’t have the guts to take on this job right under Morganfield’s nose."

"For this project, he is the only client."

"Only he has this need, and only he can make it happen."

"If you go around him, you’ll accomplish nothing."

Leo felt a sense of suffocation.

He was cornered.

’Then what else can I give him?’ Leo questioned internally. ’I’ve already promised him the construction contract and preferential logistics rates. If I give any more, I’ll have to hand over management of the port itself.’

’If that happens, what’s the difference between me and that bastard Carter Wright?’

’I keep saying I want to take back the city for the people, but then I’d be turning around and selling its most valuable asset to the biggest oligarch.’

’I’ll become the very person I hate the most.’

"The difference?"

Roosevelt’s voice suddenly sounded much more world-weary.

"The difference lies in the objective, my boy."

"But the means... are often the same."

"Do you think Abraham Lincoln was a saint?"

Leo was taken aback. He didn’t understand why Roosevelt would bring up Lincoln at a time like this.

"When you go to Washington and stand in that magnificent Lincoln Memorial, you look up at him, at that nineteen-foot-tall white marble statue."

"He sits there, his gaze profound, his expression compassionate, bathed in a deliberately designed, sacred light. He looks like a prophet descended from Mount Sinai, or a deity from Greek mythology."

"But the real man wasn’t made of marble. He was made of flesh and blood, of calculation and extreme realism."

"In order to pass the Thirteenth Amendment to abolish slavery, in order to forcibly stitch this divided nation back together, he didn’t rely on the members of Congress to have a crisis of conscience."