Forging America: My Campaign Manager is Roosevelt

Chapter 381: Chapter 180: Questioning

The award ceremony was still going on.

The spotlights were still dazzling, the applause still enthusiastic.

But Leo’s mind had already drifted far away.

For the next ten or so minutes, he operated like a precision machine set to a program.

Smile. Shake hands. Present the certificate. Pose for the photo. Turn.

Every action was flawlessly executed, but his eyes seemed to be looking through a layer of fog.

His mind was racing, complex diagrams of capital flow weaving together before his eyes.

If Saint Claude was really pulling strings behind the scenes, then this financial hunt targeting the Rust Belt might have started even earlier than he’d imagined.

He watched the students walk onstage to receive their awards, their faces young and excited, while his mind was busy calculating how to clean house at the Treasury Department.

He no longer had any great expectations for the day’s ceremony.

Discovering one Marcus Thorne was enough to make it worthwhile.

That boy, capable of sniffing out the scent of crisis within vast, tedious streams of data, was his only solace at the moment.

As for the rest, they were likely just good, obedient kids with excellent grades.

"Our next award winner."

Ethan returned to the microphone and glanced at the list.

"Alina Rodriguez."

"From Allegheny Community College, majoring in Social Work."

A young woman rose from the crowd.

She walked onto the stage quickly, her footsteps thudding heavily on the wooden floor.

Leo adjusted his stance out of habit, preparing for the next round of handshakes and thank-yous.

But as the young woman stepped into the spotlight, Leo’s gaze froze.

She was nothing like the students before her, who wore cheap suits and tried so hard to look like adults.

She wore a pair of faded jeans, the knees worn thin.

On top, she wore an old T-shirt printed with the face of Che Guevara, covered by a cheap denim jacket.

Her hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail, with a few stray strands plastered to her sweaty forehead.

Her skin was a healthy, sun-kissed tan—the mark of someone who spent their days pounding the pavement.

She looked less like a student accepting an award and more like a young leopard, ready to bare its fangs.

Her file flashed through Leo’s mind: Alina Rodriguez, age twenty, organizer for the Brooklyn District Tenants’ Union.

Leo picked up the certificate and check, and courteously extended his right hand.

"Congratulations, Alina."

The young woman stopped about three feet in front of Leo.

Her deep brown eyes, fixed on Leo’s outstretched hand, held no awe—only two burning flames.

She didn’t reach for it.

Her hands hung at her sides, clenched into tight fists.

The air in the hall suddenly felt thin.

In the front row, Sarah rose nervously to her feet, her eyes signaling the security guards at the side of the stage to be ready.

Leo narrowed his eyes slightly.

He raised his left hand, gesturing for the guard about to rush the stage to stand down.

He looked at the young woman, and it was like looking at a kind of reflection in a mirror.

Alina suddenly took a step forward.

She snatched the microphone stand in front of Leo, yanking it toward her.

"Mr. Mayor."

Her voice trembled slightly, thick with a Latina accent.

"I’m taking this award, but that doesn’t mean I approve of you."

"And I absolutely will not thank you."

The crowd erupted.

The audience, who had been clapping and whispering amongst themselves moments before, now stared with their mouths agape in shock.

Alina ignored the surrounding noise. She fixed her glare on Leo, pulled a crumpled, past-due rent notice from her pocket, and slammed it onto the lectern.

"I’m taking this money because I need to pay next month’s rent. My landlord informed me last week that the rent was going up by thirty percent. If I don’t pay, I’ll be sleeping on the street tonight."

"And the reason my landlord is raising the rent is all thanks to you."

Alina jabbed a finger straight at Leo’s face.

"You get on TV and talk about revitalization, about the ports, about all your grand plans."

"You said you were going to redevelop the commercial streets in the Brooklyn District, turn it into some ’cultural corridor’."

"It all sounds so wonderful."

"Do you know what that means?"

Alina’s eyes burned with rage.

"It means the speculators came sniffing around as soon as they smelled money!"

"It means our communities are being purged by capital!"

"It means our old neighbors, people who have lived here for decades, are being driven out because they can’t afford the sudden, skyrocketing rents! They’re forced to move farther away, to cheaper, more run-down neighborhoods!"

"Your ’prosperity’ has driven up the rent, but it hasn’t given us any protection!"

"You fixed the roads and planted trees... who was that for? Us? No! It was to drive up property values so you could sell the land off to vampires like Morganfield!"

"That’s gentrification! That’s displacement!"

Her voice choked with emotion, and tears welled in her eyes, but she held her head high, stubbornly refusing to let them fall.

"And another thing. You claim to represent the workers."

"You act like brothers with Frank and his Union cronies, and you give them high wages."

"But what about us?"

"What about the non-Union workers washing dishes in restaurant kitchens? The temp workers cleaning hotel rooms? The undocumented immigrants delivering takeout?"

"Who represents them?"

"Your revitalization plan is filled with promises to the steelworkers and panders to the construction Unions."

"But for us, the people at the very bottom, the ones who stay silent, the ones without the protection of a Union—your plan doesn’t have a single word for us!"