I turned my phone off overnight. I didn’t want anything to disturb us. She slept beside me and I was completely at peace.

She had taken to submitting as if it was the most natural thing in the world. I had my doubts, wondering if she might say the safe word once I tied her wrists to the metal bar. But she handled it all, surprising me with her eagerness.

She didn’t complain about a thing. The longer we spent together, the more I began to marvel at her. I had barely scratched the surface of her. She clearly had hidden depths that were only just beginning to emerge, like I was getting flashes of who she really was.

She was not just the innocent girl I saw behind the bar. She was so much more than that. She had walked naked through the house, she had an exhibitionist streak, that was clear. She submitted to my every demand, did everything that was asked of her. I could not have wished for a more perfect woman to spend my life with.

From the beginning, I had told her I wanted a lot more than a one night stand and I was glad I had said so. It got us off on the right foot. I wanted a life with her. I couldn’t imagine anyone else by my side, we were so in tune, she sometimes knew what I wanted before I asked.

Best of all, she didn’t take herself too seriously. She knew this was a lifestyle but it was also roleplay, it required the open participation of both people, the enthusiasm to take part, rather than feeling forced into it. She had thrown herself in with both feet and as she lay asleep at my side, I couldn’t help but smile.

It was difficult to sleep. I was too happy. I couldn’t help thinking something had to go wrong. It did, the next morning, when I turned my phone back on.

There were several messages that popped up at once, each one more urgent than the last.

I’d got out of bed ready to make her breakfast before she woke up but instead I found myself on the phone to the office, listening to a frantic Malcolm telling me I had to come in.

He never told me I had to do anything. He was the politest man I’d ever known. In his mid-sixties, he’d worked for my father before me and knew more about the running of both my companies than anyone else. He was never worried, never stressed, never angry. Until today.

“You need to get down here now,” he said when I rang him back. He sounded different and it took me a while to work it out. He was shouting. Why was he shouting? He never shouted. “Get here now, Ethan.”

“Why? What’s happened?”

“I don’t even know where to start. Just get yourself here as quick as you can.”

“What’s going on?” Alice asked behind me, sitting up and yawning as I turned to face her.

“It’s fine,” I mouthed before turning back to the phone. “I’ll be in as soon as I can.”

“Please, hurry, Ethan!”

I hung up before picking my clothes up off the floor.

“What’s happened?” Alice asked. “Are you all right?”

“I don’t know but I need to go into work. Are you all right here on your own?”

“Sure, I’m not due in until tonight. Will you be back before then?”

“Should be. I’m sorry to have to do this to you.”

“Don’t worry about me. You do what you’ve got to do and I’ll be waiting for when you get back.”

“That’s good to know,” I said, kissing her forehead before rushing for the door. I had no idea that would be our last kiss before all hell broke loose.

I drove quickly to the office. It was about half an hour from where I lived, slap bang in the middle of the city. Of course I got stuck in traffic. Even at eight in the morning, the roads were clogged.

I didn’t get in through the door until nearly nine and I found Malcolm pacing up and down in reception, talking quietly into the phone.

As soon as he saw me, he said, “I’ve got to go,” before hanging up and running over. “Thank God you’re here, Ethan.”

“What’s going on, Malcolm? Why do you look so stressed?”

“Not here,” he said, glancing around him. “Somewhere private.”

I followed him over to the executive lift. Once we were inside, he leaned back against the mirrored wall behind him. “It’s all gone,” he said, the colour draining from his face.

“What’s all gone?”

“Everything. I don’t even know how.”

I felt a gnawing sensation in my stomach, like I knew what he was going to say. “Start at the beginning.”

“You know I have an alarm set up in case of issues.”

“The fail safe in the system, I remember.”

“It went off last night. The company is tanking. Someone’s been manipulating the shares, I don’t even know how. We apparently spent every last bit of liquidity we had buying phantoms and then borrowing more off the assets to spend every last penny and then, Christ, Ethan, I don’t know how to tell you.”

“Just do it.”

“They sold it all for pennies. The shares have gone through the floor, Powers Enterprises looks worthless. It doesn’t make any sense, I don’t understand it.”

“What do you know?”

“Huh?”

“What have you found out?”

The lift opened and we stepped out, walking along the corridor as he talked in a low voice. “It’s like someone hacked into the system, which is impossible. Then they changed the code in the main systems programmes which is also impossible. It's like they had a backdoor set up. Then they bought high and sold low and fucked us royally, Ethan.”

“Any ideas who did it?”

“All I could find was a name, buried in the access files. Black Hat.”

We reached the IT department. I stopped outside the door. “Right, this is what we do. We track down who did it. We get them arrested. At the same time, we get the sales cancelled, we put out a press release telling the shareholders not to panic, we’ve got it all under control.”

“They’re already panicking, Ethan.”

“Well we’ve got to do something.”

“Listen to me. You’re broke. The company is broke. When they find out there’s no money left, you won’t have a single person in this building. They’ll all be lining up to sue you, take your personal assets, your house, cars, everything to try and claw back their losses.”

“That will take time though, we’ve got time to fix this.”

“It’s already started.” He ran his hand through what was left of his hair.

“What do you mean?”

“Take a look.” He pushed open the door.

“Where is everyone?” I asked, seeing only a single person sat at his computer.

“The IT bods found it first. They’re already gone, they saw the writing on the wall before anyone else.”

“Apart from him.”

 “Who is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, I’ll talk to him. You get on the phone, get a press conference set up. Keep a lid on this for as long as you can, make up something about a glitch in the programming, tell them we’re working to fix it.”

“How long do you think they’ll believe that?”

“Hopefully long enough to get this sorted.”

I headed into the office, leaving him walking away muttering to himself. I tried not to panic. I already had a thought as to who was behind this. The man I used to work with, the man who was deep in the IT systems when they were being set up.

Jason bloody Fry.

It would have been just like him to leave a back door in the system, just in case he ever needed it. It would also be just like him to take revenge to such an extreme length, tank the entire company.

All those people who worked for me, all laid off just before Christmas, my reputation would be ruined. They’d see me as Scrooge and the Grinch combined. I had to get this sorted. But how?

“I’m not sure we’ve met,” I said when I reached the one person still working. “Ethan Powers.”

“Of course you are,” the man replied, taking my offered hand. “Roy Crichton.”

“How come you’re still here, Roy?”

He shrugged. “Haven’t got a lot to go home for. Plus your firewall’s shit, I can download any film I want from-” He stopped. “Probably shouldn’t say that, should I? Not to the boss.”

“I’ve got bigger things to worry about at the minute.”

“I saw. So, you’re worth less than me and I’m pretty broke as it is. I get the feeling I might not get paid this month either.”

“About that. How good are you with computers?”

“Better than the person who did this to you.”

“What makes you say that.”

“He didn’t bother to hide himself properly. First rule of hacking anything, hide your tracks. No, that’s the second rule. First rule is do it in the dark with your hood up so the stock photos they use on the news are more accurate. Preferably have a green screen too, Matrix style. I’m rambling, aren’t I? I do that.”

I concentrated on the important part of what he’d said, trying to squash down the fear rising up inside me. “Can you fix it?”

“Maybe. He’s good, the guy who did it. Lucky for you, I’m better.”

“How long have you worked here?”

“Only a month. If I’d been here longer, I might have seen this coming, or if I had higher access granted.”

“You’ll get whatever you need. Do this for me and I’ll sing Christmas carols at your door for a week.”

“I’d settle for getting paid at the end of the month.”

“You’re a good guy, Roy.”

“So you don’t mind me downloading a film or two?”

“If you get this done, I’ll buy you a cinema. Do you want my number?”

“It’ll be on the system.”

“But the executive section is password protected.”

“Yeah, it is. And if I press this, there we are, Ethan Powers. Says here you wet the bed until you were nine.”

“It says that! It’s not true.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No, it was only until I was seven. Call me when you get something.”

“Will do.”

I left to the sound of him hammering on the keyboard.

He’d managed to make me smile which was something but my smile faded as I headed out of the office and back to the lift. What if this didn’t work? I might lose the house. Then what? My parents would have nowhere to come back to. God, what if I had to tell them?

It wasn’t easy to decide. They would find out if it got out but if I told them and I managed to fix it, I’d only worry them. I decided to give it twenty-four hours. If Roy hadn’t got back to me by then, I’d ring them, tell them I’d ruined everything, all over a girl.

Should I have let him take her after the auction? Would that have prevented all this? The thought only stayed in my head for a brief moment. I couldn’t have done it. I couldn’t have just walked away from Alice.

I found Malcolm in his office and for the next couple of hours we went over as much as we could, digging through files of paperwork, looking at the finances. I could see what he was talking about on the screens he showed me.

There were the figures. Company money used to buy worthwhile stock at overinflated prices, then sold off for pennies no more than a few seconds later. It was seamless, done far too fast for human hands to be involved. A programme had done this. The question was who set up the programme?

By three in the afternoon, there was nothing else I could do so I left Malcolm in charge and headed home.

I needed to speak to Alice. I needed to confide in someone and I couldn’t think of anyone better. I drove as quickly as I could. Was there anything else I should do other than wait?

I stopped on the drive and rang Malcolm. The shock had worn off and he was back on top of things, fending off phone calls from worried investors.

“I can’t keep them held off for long,” he said once he’d filled me in. I told him about Roy.

“Give me twenty-four hours,” I said. “Then we’ll drown together if needed.”

“I’ll do my best,” he replied. “But when this is over, I might think about retirement. My heart can’t take it much longer.”

“I don’t blame you,” I replied before hanging up. Twenty-four hours. Then admit to the world than Ethan Powers was broke. It was the worst thing that could happen to me and I hadn’t even seen it coming.

I parked up outside the front of the house and walked in. “Alice,” I called out. “Where are you?”

It turned out losing my fortune wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to me. Because the longer I called her name with no response, the more I realised there was something much worse that could happen.

I had lost her.