Chapter 3 - The Manager's Mistake
"Well, well, well! Incredible work, team!" Marcus announced loudly, clapping his hands together with theatrical enthusiasm as he elbowed his way to the front of the medical circle, standing directly over the stretcher.
Captain Vance glared at him, stepping protectively in front of the patient. "Back up, mister. He just suffered a massive cardiac event; he needs air and immediate transport to Northwestern Memorial."
"Of course, of course, Captain," Marcus chuckled smoothly, ignoring the paramedic's hostile glare. He looked down at Richard Bennett, whose expensive silk tie was askew and whose custom-tailored suit was stained with floor cleaner. Marcus assumed, like everyone else in the terminal, that the old man was just another wealthy, out-of-touch corporate executive traveling through O'Hare.
"Sir, I’m Marcus Vance, regional operations manager for Apex Terminal Services," Marcus introduced himself eagerly, extending a manicured hand toward the stretcher. "I just wanted to personally assure you that our rapid-response protocols handled this emergency with absolute perfection. My staff acted immediately."
Richard Bennett didn't take Marcus’s hand.
The multi-billionaire aviation titan lay on the medical gurney, his breathing stabilizing under oxygen. His pale blue eyes slowly shifted away from Marcus, locking once more onto Ethan Carter, who was quietly gathering his dropped spray bottles off the terrazzo floor, preparing to slink away back to the service corridor.
"You..." Richard Bennett rasped, his voice sounding like dry sandpaper, but carrying an unmistakable, commanding authority that instantly pierced through the ambient noise of the terminal.
Marcus beamed, puffing out his chest. "Yes, sir! That's me! I directed the entire—"
"Not you, you pompous jackass," Richard snapped, his voice dropping into a razor-sharp, freezing register that made Marcus physically recoil as if struck by a whip.
The smile instantly vanished from Marcus’s face. He blinked, stammering, "I... I beg your pardon, sir?"
Richard Bennett ignored him entirely. He reached out a frail, trembling hand, his fingers gripping the sleeve of Ethan’s torn navy blue janitorial uniform as the boy tried to wheel his cleaning cart toward the service exit.
"Son," Richard rasped, his eyes boring straight into Ethan’s exhausted hazel eyes. "What is your name?"
"Ethan, sir," Ethan replied quietly, keeping his head down, expecting the airport police to arrest him any second for abandoning his station. "Ethan Carter."
Richard Bennett slowly propped himself up on one elbow, ignoring the protests of the lead paramedic. He looked down at Ethan’s torn collar—the exact spot where Marcus Vance had violently ripped the fabric just ten minutes earlier. Then his gaze flickered to the plastic name tag that had fallen to the floor: ETHAN, CUSTODIAL CREW.
"Ethan Carter," Richard repeated, tasting the name on his tongue as if memorizing a code. "You saved my life."
"Anybody would have done the same, sir," Ethan murmured, though he knew damn well nobody else had.
"No, son. They didn't," Richard said coldly, his gaze finally snapping back toward Marcus Vance. The billionaire’s pale blue eyes turned into shards of jagged ice. "Three hundred people stood around with their phones filming me die like a roadside animal. And this... this corporate parasite spent his entire energy screaming at you about inventory zones and termination threats."
Marcus’s face drained of all color. The skin beneath his fake salon tan turned a sickly, translucent gray. "Sir... I... I didn't know who you were! If I had known you were a VIP passenger—"
"A VIP passenger?" Richard interrupted, his voice rising, carrying a terrifying, seismic authority that vibrated through the steel beams of Terminal B. "You think my life is worth more because of my net worth than a working man's life?! You threatened to fire this boy and rob his disabled mother of her insulin because he dared to stop cleaning a tile floor to save a human being?!"
"Mr. Bennett, please," Marcus stammered, his knees knocking together so violently he had to grab a luggage cart to stay upright. "Apex contract rules are strict—we have to maintain operational quotas—"
"Apex contract rules," Richard repeated, a dark, humorless chuckle escaping his lips. He slowly swung his legs off the medical gurney, ignoring Captain Vance’s frantic protests. "Do you know who owns Apex Janitorial Services, Mr. Vance?"
Marcus swallowed hard, his throat dry as bone. "It... it's a subsidiary of the O'Hare Port Authority consortium..."
"It is a wholly-owned private subsidiary of Bennett Global Aviation Holdings," Richard stated, every single word landing like a sledgehammer against concrete. "Which means I don't just own the contract for Terminal B. I own every single square foot of terrazzo, every mop, every bucket, and every desk in this entire international airport."
The surrounding travelers who had gathered to watch the drama suddenly went dead silent. Cell phones dropped to people's sides.
Richard Bennett stood up fully, steadying himself against the paramedic cart. He looked down at Marcus Vance with a gaze so lethal it practically stripped the man of his clothes.
"Marcus Vance," Richard commanded, his voice ringing out across the cavernous terminal. "You are hereby terminated for cause—gross operational negligence, inhuman cruelty, and creating a life-threatening hazard by countermanding emergency medical protocols."
"Terminated?! You can't do that!" Marcus shrieked, his voice cracking into a pathetic, high-pitched whine. "I have a two-year management retention contract! I'll sue this airline! I'll sue your holding company!"
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"You can sue a brick wall, Mr. Vance, because by the time my legal team finishes with you, you won't even be able to afford a lawyer," Richard retorted coldly. He turned to the two airport security guards who had finally pushed their way through the crowd. "Escort this waste of oxygen off Port Authority property immediately. If he ever sets foot in an airport terminal again, charge him with criminal harassment."
Before Marcus could utter another desperate plea, the security guards grabbed him by the arms, hauling him backward through the terminal as he wept openly, his professional reputation evaporating into the recycled air of O'Hare.
