Hayden

When faced with an impending crisis, there were two sorts of people in business—those who said they weren’t going down without a fight, and those who didn’t bother to entertain the possibility of failure in the first place. I was firmly in the second category.

I’d built my reputation differently to a lot of businessmen in the City of London. Instead of relying on family connections, drinks with old boarding school mates, and trying to impress, I concentrated on the numbers, obsessed over details and made smart decisions. I liked to make money. A lot of money. I didn’t care to shout about it.

Over the last ten years, I’d taken Wolf Enterprises from spare-room startup on the outskirts of London to one of the biggest companies in Europe. I was responsible for tens of thousands of jobs and a balance sheet of billions. For a decade, I’d known nothing but success after success. But, in the last twelve months, something had shifted. I’d been missing out on important sales, undercut on contracts, and locked out of bids. My empire was wobbling.

I wasn’t about to let it collapse.

I just had to convince my investors over lunch that I could turn things around.

As I arrived at the entrance, I spotted Steven and Gordon across the room. I checked my watch. I’d arrived at the restaurant exactly on time, which meant they were early. A bad sign, as they ordinarily made a habit of keeping people waiting. They meant business.

But so did I.

The hostess showed me to a seat opposite them at a table near the back. These guys did nothing by accident. A public lunch rather than a private meeting. Arriving early. Seating themselves so the dynamic would be two against one—it was all carefully orchestrated, designed to send a message before they’d even spoken a word.

“Gordon, Steven, good to see you,” I said, acknowledging Gordon, the more senior of the two, first. I understood the pecking order. It was the small things that mattered most in business.

“I love this view,” Gordon said, opening with something casual, yet subtly dismissive. He hadn’t even bothered to greet me.

I glanced out the window. The square mile in the East of London, known as “The City,” was one of the oldest parts of the capital and crammed full of the biggest banks, insurers and investment houses in the country. It was the financial hub of Europe, where the suits were sharp, and the minds sharper.

Money ruled these streets, and I’d not been making these men enough.

They wanted me to know it.

As if I could forget.

“You can keep an eye on all your investments up here,” I said, lifting my chin at the view.

Gordon smiled but fixed his gaze on mine. “Quite.”

They thought they’d ambushed me, but I was more than well prepared. “I need to bring you up to speed on a few things.”

“We hear you lost the Lombard deal,” Steven said.

And there it was. No more niceties. Swords had been drawn.

There was no point in asking him how they knew. Part of the reason I’d wanted them as investors was because they were among the most well-connected people in the City.

I sat back in my chair. “I found out late last night that we’d been outbid and they’d signed with another buyer.”

Steven and Gordon stayed silent, waiting for me to fill in the gaps.

“You know who beat you?” Steven asked.

“Cannon Group.” I kept my expression fixed, though my hands twitched in frustration. I wanted to pull them into fists and punch something. Hard. Over and over. Fucking Cannon. The last four companies I’d tried to acquire, I’d lost to them.

“This is the fourth acquisition in a row that you’ve lost,” Steven said. “We think you’re losing your touch.”

It was a justifiable accusation. I’d made my career as a deal maker—spotting small, undervalued companies and buying them, only to triple their value within three to five years and sell. It was what I did. Except that Cannon was beating me to every company I targeted.

“Have you made an enemy over there?” Steven asked. “It seems personal.”

“I don’t believe in conspiracy theories,” I replied. “When you’re on top, you’re a target.” I shrugged even though I knew that where Cannon was concerned, it was indeed personal.

“Be that as it may, you need to figure out what’s going on. We invested in you not just because you could spot a good deal, but because you could close on it. If that’s changed, we need to reconsider our relationship,” Steven said.

“This is as frustrating for me as it is for you—” I started, stepping neatly around Gordon’s attack dog.

“Frustrating? This isn’t just frustrating. It’s plain bad business,” Steven continued. “We’re not in the business of backing losers.”

“And I’m not in the business of losing, which is why I’ve moved on to bigger and better things.”

Gordon cleared his throat. He was as old school as it got, from the monogrammed cuffs on his shirt to the fifth-generation family home in the country. He never raised his voice and certainly didn’t engage in public confrontations. Of the two, he was the one I had to watch.

“We want to know how we can help,” Gordon said. “We think you’re excellent at what you do. We just want to see you back on top.”

Although Gordon sounded caring and charming, he was delivering the same message as Steven had been, just in a very different way. Our relationship was teetering on the brink.

If Steven and Gordon walked away now, it would send a clear message to the City—Hayden Wolf was a dead man walking. My deal-doing days would be over, and the business I’d built to honor my father would crumble.

I tried to appear calm, as if adrenaline wasn’t threatening to overwhelm me. “I am a deal maker, but I won’t just buy for the sake of it. Cannon are making the headlines at the moment, but they’re overpaying for assets.” If their strategy was to take me down, it was working, but at the cost of their business. They were paying far too much for companies worth far less just to screw me.

Gordon nodded. “I’m not concerned with Cannon’s business practices or bottom line. I’m concerned with yours.”

“Wolf Enterprises is on course,” I said, giving no ground. “And my next acquisition is going to make you forget about the last twelve months.”

The table fell silent as our waitress arrived with drinks for Gordon and Steven, then disappeared again.

“Wiping away the last twelve months would take a deal far larger than anything you’ve ever closed in the past,” Steven pointed out.

“Yes, it would,” I agreed.

“You expect us to believe that after a year that has marked your biggest failures, you’re going to turn it around with a single deal to not only rival, but surpass any you’ve done before?”

“Not just to surpass any one previous success,” I corrected Steven, but made eye contact with Gordon. “But to outdo them all, combined.”

Steven laughed outright, but Gordon went still and silent, considering me with the same stare he’d used the day he’d decided to invest in an unknown kid with no references and nothing to lose.

“Looking to rise from the ashes?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.

I held his stare. “Exactly.” Game, set and match to me. With decades of success behind it, Phoenix was the jewel in the City’s financial crown. I’d promised Gordon ten years ago, at that very first meeting, that I’d own it someday. He’d laughed, but I’d meant it and now I was going to fulfil on that promise and buy Phoenix.

“This can’t get out,” Gordon said, his voice just above a whisper. “The minute news goes public that they’re considering a sale it’ll be pandemonium, a bidding war the likes of which we’ve never seen.”

“I agree,” I said, watching as Steven tried to puzzle together just what we were talking about.

“Cannon is targeting Wolf Enterprises, letting you set up the deal, then swooping in at the last minute to outbid you. They’re getting their information from someone,” Gordon said.

I’d been thinking of nothing else since I’d lost the Lombard deal. How had that been stolen out from under me? I’d kept it to such a close-knit group of people. All advisors signed ironclad nondisclosure agreements. I’d been so sure I’d had it in the bag.

“Corporate espionage?” Steven asked.

Probably, though I’d been reluctant to admit it. When I’d lost the first deal, I’d shrugged it off as one of those things. The second one, I changed my financial advisors. The third one and now Lombard? After the third deal had been stolen from under me, I’d ensured that only a trusted team of four, including my assistant, knew about Lombard. Which meant the leak had come from my own office.

The thought made me sick.

I’d handpicked the team. They’d earned my trust, something I didn’t give easily.

If I was going to ensure secrecy, I was going to have to isolate myself further. To make this work, I’d have to trust no one, suspect everyone. My business, my reputation, everything I’d worked so hard to build over the last decade was at stake.

“If I want to get this deal done quickly and quietly, I need to disappear. No one can know I’m working on anything. The next time you hear from me, it’ll be with a request to fund the deal.”

“Disappear?” Gordon asked.

“An extended, working holiday. Preferably abroad. Let the vultures assume I went off to lick my wounds after the last deal fell through.” Cannon needed to think I was down for the count.

“I know how much this deal means to you,” Gordon said as Steven leaned forward. “I want to see you succeed. Do what it takes to make it happen.”

I nodded. “I’m ready.”

“Make this work, Hayden,” Gordon said, rising from the table. “Because if you don’t, it’ll be the end of Wolf Enterprises.”