Kim, with her right foot in a cast and leaning on crutches, limped into the Building Safety Department of Lubbock City Hall in Texas. Mesa Verde Bank was opening a branch here, and the construction plans had been filed with the department. Her goal was to verify that the plans held by her law firm matched the filed documents—otherwise, there would be major trouble. Seeing her difficulty moving, the staff kindly helped retrieve the materials and compared them one by one. Confirming there were no discrepancies, Kim let out a sigh of relief. Just then, Jimmy appeared with a backpack slung over his shoulder and a baby bottle in hand. He was Kim’s older brother, here to drive her and take care of her eight-month-old nephew.
At the sight of Jimmy, Kim exclaimed in alarm—they couldn’t leave the baby alone in the car. The staff shared her concern, completely failing to notice Jimmy casually placing the baby bottle on top of the blueprints. When Kim returned from the parking lot, the staff were frantically cleaning up milk that had spilled across the desk. The filed blueprints were soaked, parts of the content smudged beyond recognition. Kim burst into tears—months of work had gone down the drain. Fearing responsibility for dereliction of duty, the staff offered to replace the soaked filed plans with the ones Kim had brought, since they’d already confirmed they matched earlier. Grateful, Kim pulled the plans from her bag—but they weren’t the same ones as before.
With this clever ruse, Kim and Jimmy had secured a 13% increase in usable space for Mesa Verde Bank, no reapproval needed. Jimmy revelled in the process, and Kim felt no remorse. Still, she insisted that such tricks must have a prerequisite: they had to be used for good.
A year had passed since his license was revoked. Jimmy put on a suit and picked up his briefcase once more, heading to the Department of Justice for his reinstatement hearing. Before the hearing committee, Jimmy choked up, expressing deep remorse for his past actions. After the hearing, he’d have to wait several days for the ruling. Eager to know the outcome, Jimmy sat outside the small conference room, waiting for the clerk to emerge—he knew the clerk would have the result immediately and print it as a written document. The clerk’s awkward expression told Jimmy everything: it was over. He chased after one of the committee members, desperate to know why the decision had gone against him. The answer left him even more devastated: some committee members thought he hadn’t been sincere enough. It was a reason that gave him no grounds for appeal—he’d have to wait another year.
The result infuriated Jimmy. He struggled to contain his anger as he told Kim about the hearing. By his account, everything had gone smoothly, and he’d answered every question appropriately. But Kim identified the critical flaw: Jimmy hadn’t mentioned his brother Chuck once. Most of the committee members had been Chuck’s protégés, holding him in the highest regard. Jimmy’s disregard for his own brother had deeply disappointed the committee.
Jimmy flew into a rage at the mention of Chuck. He didn’t want to talk about him anymore, nor did he need Kim’s help. As soon as the words left his mouth, he regretted them—but it was too late to take them back. Once calm, however, Kim was still determined to help him get his license back.
Lalo and Nacho visited the nursing home where Hector was recovering, able to move only his right index finger. Nacho could see that Lalo was just as ruthless as Hector. He couldn’t hear what Lalo was saying to Hector, but when he saw Hector repeatedly tapping his finger in agreement, he knew they were plotting revenge against their enemies.
Lalo and Nacho then went to Gustavo’s fried chicken restaurant. Lalo was polite to Gustavo, framing his decision to save Hector despite their past as an act of goodwill. Suddenly, he shifted gears, sowing discord between Eladio and Gustavo—blaming the long-standing animosity between them on Eladio’s divide-and-conquer tactics. Gustavo didn’t take the bait; after vague, noncommittal responses, he showed Lalo out.
Gustavo’s underground tunnel project had reached a critical stage. The final blast nearly went wrong—Werner had risked his life to inspect the wiring and fix the malfunction before successfully detonating the boulder blocking the path. The blast was a success: it cleared the rock without damaging the tunnel’s main structure. Yet Werner remained despondent. In four months, it would be his 26th wedding anniversary, and after being away for so long, he was desperate to return to Germany to see his wife. Mike understood Werner’s feelings but couldn’t grant his request—he could only agree to let him call his wife once.
After the call, Werner seemed much lighter, and Mike felt reassured. But the next evening, when Mike entered the monitoring room outside the warehouse to prepare for the night’s excavation, he noticed something was off with several of the surveillance screens. Red and green dots flickered across the displays, like pixel glitches. From experience, Mike knew someone had duplicated the surveillance footage and hijacked the signal. Sure enough, Werner’s room was empty, and the small door leading to the roof had been pried open. Werner had escaped.