Viktor stood at the loading dock door, counting rivets in the steel frame above him. Fourteen years of welding had taught him to see structure where others saw shadow. He needed ten thousand square feet, three-phase power, and two hundred thousand dollars to build the shop that would anchor this city's metalwork for the next generation. The call came at six in the morning. Marcus, the supplier who had never steered him wrong in eight years, wanted to meet at the industrial building on the east side. Viktor drove there in twenty minutes. The building had glass walls that caught the sunrise, a loading dock wide enough for three semis, and ceilings that disappeared into darkness. Marcus stood inside with his hands in his pockets. He said a manufacturing group wanted to fund the right partner, someone with a name they could trust. They needed Viktor's reputation on the contract, and they would front the full two hundred thousand. Viktor looked at the pressed concrete floor, the power junction boxes on the walls, the space that could hold everything he had planned for. Marcus had never asked him for anything before. Viktor said yes.