I can’t make out what you’re saying.” I crank the volume up on the phone as high as it can go. “Can you just email it to me?”

All I get back is garble, so I sigh and thumb it off. Beside me, Akeeb Lawani offers a sheepish shrug.

“I must apologize,” he says in his unique mix of accents. He grew up here in Nigeria speaking English and Igbo, but went to finishing school in Belgium. “The reception here is less than ideal. By which I mean terrible.”

I chuckle and slip the phone into the pocket of my slacks. “Not a problem. It was just my partner, Nathan. Hopefully he heard me ask him to send an email. We should be able to pick it up on a hard-wired computer here, yes?”

“One would hope,” he sighs. “But as you can see, nothing has been maintained very well here. That is, of course, why it’s being sold at such a discount.”

The refinery is actually in better shape than I had any hope to believe it would be, given the price. The consultants I hired from Japan agree, and have all but said I’d be a fool to pass it up, given what it’s components could go for on the open market right now. Akeeb, the agent for the National Petroleum Ministry, has been tasked with selling it off to the highest bidder as part of a government effort to modernize the country’s refineries and get rid of the ones they consider not worth the effort.

But there’s something about his demeanor that’s itching my curiosity. He seems almost… I don’t know. Nostalgic?

“Do you have a connection to this place?” I ask as we stroll through the corridors back to the deserted office that had once served as the control room. The place is dusty as a ghost town and every sound echoes through the empty halls.

He raises an eyebrow. “You are as astute as I have heard, Mr. Lucas.”

“Call me Justin.”

He nods. “You are correct. I grew up less than twenty miles from here. I had many uncles and cousins who worked at this refinery over the years. Its loss was a heavy blow to the economy here, as I’m sure you can imagine.”

His words conjure up images of the people who might have once roamed these halls. Refining is hard work, especially in Nigeria’s climate, but it’s an honest job and probably paid better than anything else that didn’t require an education. Most of the people who worked here probably fought for everything they got from life. I can relate.

The thought sparks a crazy question that I suddenly want answered.

“Akeeb, is the government interested in allowing foreign ownership of these refineries?”

His eyebrows go up. “I don’t understand what you mean.”

“What if someone were to buy this place and get it running again? Is there a government policy against that?”

“At the risk of pointing out the obvious, Justin, that would cost much more than simply buying it and dismantling it.”

“It would cost me, yes, but the government gets the same price either way. I’m just curious if they would have a problem with competition outside the government-controlled system.”

We take a seat at a table and Akeeb pulls his laptop from his briefcase. A blue cable under the table connects him to the refinery’s ancient modem.

“Nigeria’s petroleum industry is in flux right now,” he says. “There have been many allegations of corruption in the system, but billions of dollars have been earmarked for modernization. In such an environment, I would think there is room for negotiation. That is, if someone was interested in doing so, which I can’t imagine.”

I grin. “Thanks, I appreciate it. Do you mind if I use your laptop to access my email? There’s no wi-fi here to connect my phone, and my laptop is back in the city.

“Of course.”

He turns it to face me and I connect through my encrypted web server. Let’s see what Nathan was so wound up about—

Oh, shit. Oh, shit.

“Is something wrong, Justin?” Akeeb looks at me, alarmed.

There’s a colossal problem. Nathan was trying to warn me about a story that broke in the New York Times yesterday that broke this morning accusing me of being the vulture who was trying to destabilize PinkBook. The story quotes an inside source saying that I was behind the data breach, and that I got close to Sarah so that I could scavenge the company straight from the top. This is Darryl Lawrence’s doing, I know it! Of all the times for me to be in the middle of nowhere and not be able to communicate!

I check my watch—it’s 2:30 a.m. back home, and Sarah turns her phone off at night, so there’s no way I can reach her right now. Goddamn it! And my cell’s reception was practically non-existent for most of yesterday, so she had to spend an entire day dealing with this!

“I’m sorry, Akeeb, this will have to wait,” I say. “I have to get to New York as soon as possible.”

He looks alarmed. “Of course, my friend. Is there anything I can do to assist you?”

“I could really use your laptop for the next hour.” I take a deep breath. “I’ve got a lot of work to do, and if I screw it up, I may lose everything.”

* * *

The co-pilot breaks my concentration with the announcement that we’re beginning our descent into LaGuardia. I sit back and rub my eyes; I’ve been staring at my laptop screen for the better part of a day at this point.

It took almost four hours to charter a private jet from Lagos to Madrid, then two hours in the air, then another charter to New York City. This is going to put me two days behind the story by the time I land, and I’m already exhausted. Worst of all is that Sarah’s not returning my calls. I even asked Nathan to try approaching her, but there’s a wall of silence around PinkBook right now. Not that I blame her—when you’re under siege you circle the wagons.

I was able to dig up what was happening, and I spent hours on the flight kicking myself for not seeing it sooner. Lawrence somehow found an investor to pony up the money for a massive stock grab, which is why he worked so hard to make the company look bad. He’s been in the ears of dozens of major shareholders, telling them he’s willing to buy their shares if they want to jump ship. I can just imagine the pitch: his family is in it for the good of the city, and they believe in long-term investment, so they’re not worried about turning a profit right now. He makes himself look like the hero by taking their worthless shares off their hands, likely via a shell corporation.

It’s a hostile takeover, plain and simple. I should know: it’s been my stock in trade for years now. And for the first time, I’m seeing it from the other side.

And the woman I love is caught in the crossfire.

I sigh and run my fingers through my hair. The thought has been eating at me since I first read Nathan’s email. I used to think that I was doing people a favor by dismantling failing companies. Only the strong survive, and that applies in business even more than in nature. Or so I thought. When I imagined all of Akeeb’s relatives being put out of work by shutting down the refinery, I didn’t think about profit margin, I thought about how devastated their families must have been. To lose your livelihood, your ability to provide for your family, must leave you with a horrible feeling that you’ve lost control of your life.

If anyone should understand that, it’s me. But I pushed it down inside me with every billion I made. I thought that, if I just had enough money, I could erase the kid that I used to be and finally become a man so powerful that no one could possibly push me around ever again.

And all it cost me was everything worthwhile in life.

Finding Sarah has shown me that business isn’t just numbers, profit and loss. Wealth isn’t measured by private helicopters and smart homes that automatically flush the toilet for you. Wealth has to be about people. I have more money than anyone could spend in ten lifetimes, and yet, until I found her, I had no real joy in my life. Your mantel may be covered in trophies, but if you don’t have anyone to remember the games with, what value do they have?

And if you don’t have the woman of your dreams by your side, what good is money?

I buckle in and close my laptop as the jet begins to circle towards the airport. I’ve put everything into place that I can think of, but I don’t know it it’s going to work. All I know is that, if it doesn’t work, I may lose the only thing in the world that really means anything to me.