For Elias, the heat was the least of his worries. He stood at the edge of the lot in Haines City, clutching a crumpled envelope of cash—two months of overtime from the citrus groves. His old truck had finally surrendered its transmission in the middle of a rainstorm, and in a town where the distance between home, work, and the grocery store was measured in miles of open road, no wheels meant no life.

In Haines City, survival had four wheels and a steady heartbeat, and today, Elias had both.

The paperwork was thick, but the terms were clear. Elias counted out the down payment—the physical weight of the bills leaving his hand felt like a sacrifice, but the weight of the keys landing in his palm felt like freedom.

"I don't care about what happened in 2022," Al said, sliding a cold bottle of water across the desk. "I care about how you’re getting to work tomorrow."

"She’s steady," Al said, patting the roof. "Weekly payments. You bring 'em to me every Friday, or we use the online portal. No banks, no middlemen. Just you and me."