Chapter 01

Alan had barely slept since the email arrived confirming he'd been selected and approved for the Junior Legal Intern position at a major corporation.

It was the opportunity he needed. The heavens seemed to have finally heard his prayers — even though he was an atheist.

He picked his best outfit, a suit he'd owned for about two years, and adjusted the tie as well as he could. He hated wearing those clothes, but it was the work uniform, so he didn't have a choice.

He grabbed his backpack, his wallet, his keys, and of course his faithful companion — the cane.

Alan arrived at the building a few minutes before the scheduled time. The sound of automatic doors opening, the echo of hurried footsteps in the lobby, and the expensive perfume of dozens of strangers composed a scene he could only imagine.

His fingers tightened around the cane's grip as he tried to control his nerves. It was his first day, and this opportunity meant more than just an internship.

After years of being told he could never compete on equal footing with other people, he finally had a chance to prove otherwise.

A receptionist led him to the elevator and explained how the building's floors were organized. Alan thanked her with a polite smile and carefully memorized every detail. He was determined to make a good impression. This internship was the opportunity he'd been waiting for during years, and he had no intention of wasting it.

The problems started less than an hour later. The moment he walked into the legal department, he noticed the subtle shift in the atmosphere. Conversations died for a few seconds, then gave way to whispers he had no trouble identifying.

"So that's him?" he heard someone ask.

"The blind intern?" another voice added.

"I can't believe they hired someone like that for legal."

Alan pretended not to hear. He was used to it. From school through college and into practically every new environment he'd ever entered, there was always someone ready to judge him before even knowing him. He sat at his desk and began organizing the digital documents they'd sent him. The screen reader narrated everything through his earbuds while he took notes and familiarized himself with the company's procedures.

Across the room, some colleagues kept watching and commenting.

"Bet he got hired through the disability quota."

"Must be a huge hassle... Imagine having to help him all the time."

Alan kept his attention on the work. He ignored the comments, even though every word stung. He'd learned long ago that responding rarely made things better. Most of the time, it just gave people exactly the reaction they were looking for.

The provocations started subtly. An object moved from its place. A chair appeared a few centimeters out of its usual position. Comments surfaced whenever they thought he couldn't hear. Nothing serious enough to justify a formal complaint, but enough to create a constant undercurrent of discomfort.

Shortly before lunch, he was tasked with organizing folders for a legal meeting. He separated everything carefully at his side and continued working. When he reached for them a few minutes later, they had simply vanished.

Alan frowned. He ran his hand across the desk. Nothing. He checked the space around him. Nothing. Then he heard a few stifled laughs and understood immediately what had happened.

They were hiding his things again.

His jaw clenched. For a few seconds, the familiar mix of rage and humiliation pressed against his chest. It never stopped hurting, no matter how many times it happened. Still, he refused to give his colleagues the satisfaction of watching him lose his composure.

He stood and began searching. He moved calmly, guided by his memory of the space, by the position of the desks, and by the cane. The laughter continued, though it grew less confident as time went on. After a few minutes, he found the folders hidden behind a cabinet.

The silence that followed was almost embarrassing.

Alan simply retrieved the documents and returned to his desk. He didn't accuse anyone. He didn't complain. He didn't demand an explanation. He just picked up exactly where he'd left off, as if nothing had happened.

But the feeling of being tested lingered through the rest of the morning — as if those people were waiting for the moment he'd finally crack and give them a reason to say he didn't belong there.

Alan had no intention of giving them that satisfaction.

He tried to push through the rest of the morning as if nothing had happened, but the sensation of being watched never faded. Even when the atmosphere seemed calmer, he still noticed small shifts in behavior around him, as though his colleagues were waiting for a reaction that never came. When he was told to deliver some documents to the executive floor, he accepted without hesitation.

The elevator was more crowded than he would have liked when he reached the lobby. People flowed in and out in a constant stream, talking about meetings and deadlines. Alan waited for a lull in the traffic before stepping in, positioning himself near one of the walls. The enclosed space amplified every sound, forcing him to pay even closer attention to the movement around him.

That's when he felt a hard impact against his shoulder.

The blow was enough to knock him off-balance for a moment, and the folder he was holding slipped from his hands, hitting the floor with a flat slap. The pages scattered immediately across the corridor, nudged along by the hurried footsteps of people still passing by.

"Watch where you're going," said a male voice, low and full of impatience.

Alan took a deep breath before answering, trying to hold on to the composure he'd been maintaining all day.

"You're the one who bumped into me, sir."

The silence that followed was immediate. Some people slowed their pace; others simply stopped. The tension in the air thickened, as if everyone around them had realized the situation could easily escalate.

"And you think you can correct me," the same voice responded, closer now.

Alan frowned, crouching to start gathering the papers.

"I'm just saying what happened."

Before he could reach some of the sheets, he heard the sound of someone else crouching as well. The presence beside him carried an authority that was hard to ignore.

"Leave it," the man said.

"I don't need help," Alan replied automatically.

"I wasn't asking."

The response came dry, with no room for argument. Alan hesitated for a second — not out of fear, but at the strangeness of that kind of direct imposition in such a simple situation. Still, he continued collecting the documents in silence, feeling the other person doing the same beside him.

When they finished, the folder was placed back in his hands.

For one brief instant, their fingers touched. It was quick, almost insignificant, but it left a strange sensation in the air — hard to identify, impossible to ignore.

"Thank you," Alan said, standing up.

"Hm." That was the only response.

The man walked away with firm, precise steps — unhurried, but with a presence that seemed to rearrange the space around him. The sound faded down the corridor until it disappeared completely.

That's when the whispers started.

"I can't believe he talked to him like that..."

"That was not a good idea."

"He has no clue..."

Alan turned his head slightly toward the voices.

"Who was that?" he asked, with a calm that didn't quite match his obvious curiosity.

There was a brief hesitation before someone answered.

"The president of the company."

Alan's stomach dropped for an instant — not from intimidation, but from the belated realization that he had just confronted, unknowingly, the most important person in the building.

He rubbed a hand over his face and let out a quiet sigh.

"Great... What a first day."

Meanwhile, on the top floor, the president was back in his usual domain, but clearly less focused than before. The meetings around him continued — documents presented, decisions discussed — yet his attention kept circling back to the same point. Not to the fact that he'd been challenged by an employee, let alone an intern, but to the way it had happened.

There had been no hesitation in the young man's voice. No attempt to soften what he was saying. No automatic reflex to agree with everything just to avoid trouble. When Rodolpho accused him of not paying attention to where he was going, the young man simply stated that it had been the other way around. Without raising his voice, without showing nervousness, and without the slightest concern for making a good impression.

It shouldn't have mattered. Employees came and went from this company every day, and Rodolpho rarely remembered them after a few minutes. Yet for some reason, this encounter kept occupying space in his thoughts.

Maybe because he was too accustomed to people measuring every word in his presence. Maybe because most employees seemed more worried about impressing him than about saying what they actually thought. Or maybe because that intern simply hadn't shown any of those concerns.

The memory of the whispers that had broken out right afterward didn't help either. It was clear the young man had already drawn attention from part of the department, though Rodolpho didn't know exactly why.

In the end, it was irrelevant. There were contracts to review, meetings to wrap up, and far more important problems demanding his attention.

But every now and then, the memory of the collision — of their fingers touching — and of what he'd taken for a touch of insolence from the young man crept back into his mind.

"What the hell," he muttered.

Then someone knocked at his door.

"Come in."

It was Helena, his secretary, bringing documents that needed his signature before being dispatched.

"How are the new interns doing?" he asked, as casually as he could manage.

Helena was caught off guard at first. Rodolpho wasn't the type to take an interest in that kind of thing.

"They seem to be doing fine, sir..."

He stopped signing and fixed his gaze on her.

"But..."

She inhaled deeply.

"There's one of the interns who's been getting targeted by the staff... I don't really know the details, to be honest, but it seems like they're taking advantage of his condition."

"What condition?"

"He's blind."

Could it be? Rodolpho wondered, trying to recall whether the young man he'd bumped into had been blind, but without success. He finished signing the documents and handed them back to the secretary.

"Send me the files on the new interns," he said, just as Helena was leaving the office.

As soon as he received the files, he searched through the employee photos, and the first one that appeared was the young man from earlier.

Well, well. How interesting, he thought as his eyes scanned the personnel file of Alan Eduardo Porto.

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