June 7th
The campaign office resembled a battlefield, cluttered with half-eaten takeout containers, stacks of paperwork, and the constant shrill of ringing phones. Exhausted staffers maneuvered between desks, some fighting to keep their eyes open, others muttering about jammed printers and misdialed calls. The place smelled like burnt coffee and frazzled nerves, the fluorescent lights overhead only intensifying the exhaustion etched on every face.
Near the center of the chaos, Cruz Manuelos sat at a worn conference table, a mug of black coffee cradled between her fingers. She had slept for three hours—maybe—before stumbling back into the office. Her face showed deep shadows beneath her eyes, but that didn’t stop her from glaring at the polling data spread out in front of her. McNamara: 56%. Manuelos: 36%. A twenty-point deficit. No one in the room had any illusions about how daunting that was.
She glanced at Bobby Reyes, her campaign manager, who perched on the edge of the table with her laptop open. Emails and spreadsheets glowed across the screen, the backlight revealing the dark circles beneath Bobby’s eyes. Despite her fatigue, she radiated a relentless focus.
“Tell me something I don’t already know, Bobby,” Cruz said, her voice rasping with the edge of too many long nights and not enough victories.
Bobby balanced the computer on her knees, tapping out a few quick keystrokes. “We need a major donor pipeline, or you’ll be buried by ad buys by October.” She never offered sweet lies, only blunt truths.
Cruz took a measured breath, her hand pressing against her neck in an attempt to massage away the tension. “Grassroots worked for my Senate race.”
Bobby shook her head. “That was a smaller stage. This is the governor’s seat. McNamara has corporate donors, super PACs, and old money on her side. She’s flooding every channel with ads. Meanwhile, you’re hoping grit and small-dollar donations will keep pace in Texas? We can’t close a twenty-point gap with good intentions alone.”
Cruz knew the reality. She despised it. Yet, she couldn’t change the fact that Joe McNamara’s war chest dwarfed hers. She gestured at the papers scattered across the table. “Just how bad is the fundraising difference?”
Bobby swiped a few windows on her screen, then turned it for Cruz to see. “She pulled in eighty million last quarter. You did twenty.” A canyon, not a gap.
Silence settled, save for the muted clamor of the office: keyboards clacking, phones ringing, a fluorescent bulb flickering in protest. Cruz leaned back in her chair, fingers clenching around her coffee cup. “So what do we do?”
Bobby paused, pen tapping lightly against the table. “You won’t like my answer.”
Cruz exhaled, rolling her shoulders. “I rarely do.”
“We need legitimacy with elite donors, the kind who open doors with a phone call.”
Cruz snorted. “Unless there’s a progressive billionaire saint out there, I’m not interested.”
Before Bobby could respond, the door swung open. Randy Calloway strode in, a travel mug in one hand and a thick folder of briefing documents in the other. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and carried himself like someone who had seen worse than political slugfests. His blunt gaze flicked over the numbers taped to the wall.
Cruz refused to hide her irritation. “Knock next time, Calloway.”
He didn’t even blink. “I don’t knock.” He took in her rumpled shirt and shadowed eyes. “And you look like hell.”
“Good morning to you, too.” Cruz attempted to maintain composure, but the grim polling numbers had already set her on edge.
Randy dropped the folder onto the table and lowered himself into a nearby chair. “So that’s what a twenty-point hole looks like.” He let out a low whistle. “We knew she had deep pockets, but this is brutal.”
Bobby gave him a pointed stare. “Thank you for stating the obvious, Calloway.”
He shrugged. “Just calling it like I see it. McNamara’s had Texas politics in her back pocket for years. We all knew this wasn’t a stroll in the park.”
Cruz huffed a short laugh, though no real humor touched her eyes. She imagined the headlines swirling in the media: Could a war hero-turned-senator run a statewide campaign without establishment backing? Did she have the discipline, the temperament, the ability to lead? The narrative painted her as too reckless, too emotional—everything Joe McNamara was not.
Bobby’s voice sliced into Cruz’s thoughts. “We have to change the conversation.”
Cruz gripped her coffee tighter. “How do we manage that when every network’s running segments about how I’m too much of a fighter to lead?”
“Exactly. They’re selling you as unpredictable and emotional,” Bobby said. “McNamara’s image is all about stability, familiarity. She promises ‘safe hands.’”
Cruz let out a humorless laugh. “Safe hands for who? The billionaires bankrolling her?”
Bobby nodded. “Exactly. And that’s why we’re in trouble.”
Randy flipped open the folder he’d brought. “Let me guess: we hustle for legitimacy with donors. If we don’t, we remain a footnote.”
Cruz stared down at the glaring numbers. A twenty-point gap. The kind of gap that suffocated campaigns long before Election Day.
A phone rang somewhere in the background, another volunteer barking out a request for donations. Cruz could almost feel the weight of thousands of potential voters slipping through her fingers. She’d always been the fighter, the one too stubborn to give up. Still, even she had to acknowledge that if something didn’t shift soon, she might be out of the race before she could even land a single clean hit on McNamara.
Yet, the thought of conceding didn’t sit right. She glanced at Randy, who gave a curt nod, and then at Bobby, who was already emailing another potential donor. She set her coffee down, gaze unwavering. “We’ll figure something out.”
She would not back down. Not when so many people believed in her. And in that moment, the chaos of the campaign office felt like the start of a genuine fight—one that only a soldier unafraid of steep odds could embrace.
Cruz Manuelos was never handed an easy road through life. No safety nets, no trust funds, no revered family legacy. She grew up in a small town that expected little from anyone, a place where most people never got out, and those who did rarely glanced in the rearview mirror. At eighteen, she enlisted in the United States Marine Corps, not from grand patriotic ambition, but because it was her one clear path out.
Boot camp tested every ounce of her strength and resolve. While some recruits complained, Cruz pushed herself harder. Each mile run, every punishing drill, every moment of lost sleep—she embraced them all as proof that she belonged. The Marines had a way of breaking spirits, but she refused to crack.
Not long after basic training, she set her sights on Force Recon selection, one of the most demanding special operations pipelines in the Corps. Most never tried, and even fewer passed, yet she walked into it knowing the odds were stacked against her. The training pushed her far past exhaustion, past every threshold of pain she thought she had. Some nights she dropped face-first into the dirt, muscles threatening to give out, but she never considered quitting.
She earned a quick reputation: unwavering under pressure, brutally honest, and fearless to the point of flirting with danger. If there was a fight, she ran toward it. Multiple combat deployments followed, each filled with high-stakes missions in conflict zones where failure could cost lives. She learned to make choices under fire, to keep a team alive, to choke down fear when bullets shredded the air around her.
Then came the deployment that changed the trajectory of her life. Her convoy moved through hostile territory, and the lead vehicle took a direct hit from an IED. Cruz felt the impact tear into her leg and shoulder. Though pain blurred her vision, she stayed conscious long enough to help her team before medics dragged her onto a helicopter. It was all fragments after that—voices shouting, the jolt of being carried, the roaring of blades overhead.
She woke in a hospital, and the doctors told her she was lucky to be breathing at all. Her injuries ended her career in uniform, leaving her with shrapnel damage that would never fully heal. The months of recovery that followed were a trial she hadn’t expected. She went from elite combat shape to struggling with even basic tasks, enduring long hours of therapy while grappling with the loss of her identity as a Marine.
They handed her a Purple Heart, a Marine Corps Commendation Medal, a folded flag, and let her go. Suddenly, her days had no structure, no sense of purpose. She spent hours in VA hospitals, noticing how many fellow veterans were neglected by a system that loved talking about supporting the troops but often failed to deliver when they needed it most. Anger simmered under her skin, fueled by the sight of others facing similar or worse struggles.
She still had a fighter’s spirit. If the battlefield was no longer overseas, she’d find one at home. So she ran for state senate. She despised politicians and the hollow speeches they gave, but she was furious at how little anyone seemed to do for people who struggled. If no one else would step up, she would.
Her senate campaign was a long shot from the start. She had no backing from the wealthy or well-connected. She relied on honesty, frustration, and a vow to fight for people ignored by the system. She knocked on doors herself, shaking hands in the same way she’d once taken orders—direct, unflinching. Though the media dismissed her as unrefined and too aggressive, voters responded to her lack of pretense. They believed her when she said she would fight for them, and she managed to win.
Once in the Texas Senate, she proved exactly who she was: a nightmare for lobbyists and corporate donors who expected deference. She owed them nothing and made it clear they had no sway over her decisions. Voters respected it, but powerful interests in the state—those who’d been comfortable funding docile politicians—wanted her out. They funneled money into challengers, unleashed negative ads, and lobbied party officials, all in an effort to shut her down. She barely scraped by in her re-election.
Now, she was running for governor, facing an opponent propped up by the same machine that had been trying to bury her from the start. The odds looked grim. But Cruz Manuelos had never let stacked odds stop her. If life had taught her anything, it was how to keep fighting long after common sense suggested she should quit.
Cruz’s grip tightened on the coffee cup in her hand, the heat barely cutting through the bone-deep exhaustion. Coffee was more ritual than relief by now. She drew in a breath before speaking, her words controlled.
“What do you want me to do—go begging for billionaire checks? Sell out everything I stand for?”
Bobby rolled her eyes, though there was no true malice in the gesture. “It’s not selling out; it’s surviving. You think McNamara is playing fair? She’s got corporate donors lined up down the block. She’s running ads in every major media market. Meanwhile, we’re counting pennies to keep these lights on.”
Cruz leaned back, jaw setting in a way that hinted at old battles, old grudges. She despised this—the constant chase for money, the pretense that elections were decided by merit rather than who could afford endless airtime.
“We have the people,” she said. “We have the message. We just need to reach them.”
Bobby threw her hands up, voice rising in frustration. “And how? McNamara is flooding every platform with her ads. Town halls and handshake tours aren’t enough to overpower a blank check. Voters tune out if they don’t see you on their screens.”
Cruz stayed silent, begrudgingly aware that Bobby was right. She hated that she couldn’t argue.
Bobby’s posture shifted, less rigid, more resigned. “Look, I understand why you refuse to take certain kinds of money. That’s part of your appeal—people respect you for it. But if we don’t adapt, McNamara wins by default. Is that what you want?”
Cruz eyed the data once more, the difference in funds glaring like a neon sign: McNamara’s bottomless pockets versus her own meager pool. A slow dread settled, one she fought against with every breath.
“There must be another way.”
Bobby watched her, pen tapping the table in a frantic rhythm. “Maybe. But it’s going to require something big. Something that convinces the people holding the purse strings you’re viable.”
Cruz inhaled, shoulders heavy. She wouldn’t let McNamara or her donors trample what she believed in, but how could she hope to stay in the race otherwise?
Bobby had gone quiet, a sure sign she had a plan Cruz would loathe. Cruz glanced up, her suspicion plain.
“Spit it out. I don’t have the patience for dramatic pauses right now.”
Bobby sighed, rubbing her face before she met Cruz’s gaze. “There’s another option. A way to get the money and legitimacy we need.”
Cruz snorted. “Unless there’s some progressive billionaire with a soul hiding under a rock, I’m not—”
She stopped speaking as the office door creaked open, an intern stepping in with nerves written across every feature.
“Ms. Reyes? Someone’s on the phone asking to schedule a private meeting.”
Bobby didn’t look away from Cruz. “Tell them to call back during normal hours. We’re kind of drowning here.”
The intern’s anxious eyes darted between them. “It’s Aaliyah Amrohi.”
A hush fell over the room. The whir of overworked computers and tired volunteers seemed to fade into nothing. Cruz’s fingers tightened around her coffee cup, knuckles whitening.
Bobby’s quiet oath broke the silence. “Well, that’s… unexpected.”
They exchanged a glance, the possibilities turning over in their minds. Cruz set her mug down, fingers tapping the table to keep herself centered.
“Tell me you’re joking.”
The intern shook their head. “She’s on hold, right now. Says she wants to meet.”
Bobby folded her arms, tilting her head as she measured Cruz’s reaction. “Still think there’s no moral billionaire out there?”
Cruz exhaled, her jaw tensing. Aaliyah Amrohi’s name carried the weight of a family empire, the kind of power that opened doors and shut them just as quickly. Whatever the heiress wanted, it wouldn’t be a casual favor.
She suspected that conversation would change everything. She already felt the shift, a warning in her gut she couldn’t ignore.