“I’m sorry, Mr. Blake, there’s nothing I can do. My shareholders have expressed their concerns and my hands are tied. I’m truly sorry.”

“Mr. Walker, you have to consider the fact that --”

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, bowing his head. Cutting the conversation short, he snaps his heels together and turns around, briefcase tucked under his arm, and marches out of the conference room. Like automatons, his small army of lawyers and accountants get up, following his lead, and they all stroll outside of the room, leaving me by myself.

It’s only 11 am, and this is already the second client who has bailed on me. And that’s just today. These past two months have been some of the worst yet—I’ve already lost seven clients.

I drum my fingertips on top of the conference table and then, exhaling sharply, I reach for the small intercom sitting in front of me and press one of the buttons, the one connecting me to my secretary.

“Send in the next one,” I tell Cheryl with a sigh.

“Right away,” she replies quickly, and not half a minute after, another contingent of battle weary lawyers strolls inside the conference room. The head of that small army is Anderson Smith, a tech CEO who has made his fortune during the early 2000s. I’ve been managing his fortune ever since, but it seems like our partnership is about to come to an end.

“Anderson,” I greet him, calling him by his first name and shaking his hand.

“Carter,” he answers back, and his tone isn’t a cheery one. Not a good omen.

“You didn’t need to bring so many lawyers to tell me you want to pull your money out from my company, Anderson,” I sigh, diving straight into business. Why beat around the bush? It’ not like begging for him to stay will do any good; in fact, it’d make matters even worse.

“They insisted,” he replies as he takes his seat on the other side of the table, his lips curling into a pale smile. “I’m sorry, but I can’t afford to take any chances with my money, Carter.”

“You’re not taking chances with me. You know I’m the best. What happened—what is happening—is just a misstep.” I look him straight in the eyes, trying to look as if I’m telling the truth, but Anderson doesn’t look convinced. You know what’s frustrating about this whole thing? I really am telling him the truth of it. The thing is, investors are cynics; trust and confidence are alien concepts to them. Unless it comes in a spreadsheet, they don’t believe it.

“Let me be honest with you, Carter. I know that you’ve been losing clients these past two weeks. At this rate, your hedge fund will be at risk … and I’m sorry, but I just don’t want to take any chances. I’m too old for that now,” he says, and I can tell that he’s being as honest about it as he can. He’s pushing sixty now, and he doesn’t want to take any chances. If I go down, he wants to have his money safely tucked somewhere else. And, hell, can I blame him for that? Still, he and all the other clients who've been deserting me aren’t seeing the full picture.

“I get it, I really do,” I start, placing my elbows on top of the table and looking down at him, trying to ignore the shark-eyed lawyers, all eyeballs trained on me now. “But just hang in there. I promise you, on my honor, if we hold our position you’re going to make more money than you expected. Illicit Entertainment is on the verge of a breakthrough, and we just need their first quarter sales to come about. Once that happens, we --”

“Yeah, Illicit Entertainment. About that … I’m not sure about investing in a porn company, Carter, I gotta be straight with you.”

Here we go again. Sometimes I don’t know if I’m dealing with investors or with the Prude Police. What’s wrong with a porn company, especially one like Illicit Entertainment? They pay their employees handsomely, treat everyone involved humanely, and are a terrific money-maker. And still, everyone is squeamish about investing in them.

“Illicit Entertainment is a sure bet, we have to --”

“I’m sorry, Carter. I really am. But I just want to lie down on a recliner by the beach and drink martinis. At my age I don’t want to be worrying about stocks and the market and what have you.” Slowly getting up to his feet, he walks all the way around the table to shake my hand once more. “I’m truly sorry, Carter. You’ve been a good friend to me, and I’m still honored to be able to call you my friend. But when it comes to business… I think it’s time we go our separate ways.”

“Don’t worry about that. Just enjoy your retirement,” I say with a smile, taking his hand in mine. With an acknowledging nod, he turns to leave and walks out of the conference room with a lighter step, all the lawyers trailing after him, as silent now as when they came in.

“Shit…” I mutter to myself, sinking back down into my chair as an oppressive silence settles into the conference room. With Anderson leaving, I think that the total my clients have pulled out amounts to 30% of the money I had just a few weeks back. And if I keep losing clients at this rate… If that keeps happening, soon enough I’ll have to start exiting positions, and that’s going to lead to more losses and then to more outflows…

This is a snowball from hell, there’s no other way to put it, and all of this because of a bad trade from two months ago. Somehow, the whole thing spiraled out of control; a few financial papers made a fuss about it and, the next thing I know, I'm losing clients. If there’s one thing you should know about investors, it's that they get spooked very easily.

Crap, I need at least $750 million to keep this boat afloat, and I have no idea where I’m going to find someone willing to sink that much money into me.

Rubbing my temples, I close my eyes for a moment, feeling a headache brewing at the base of my skull.

“Carter? You okay?” Cheryl’s voice cuts through the fog of my mind, and I open my eyes to look up at her. She’s standing by the doorway, red hair tied into a bun and horn-rimmed glasses perched on her nose. She’s been with me right from the start and God bless her for that. I’d be lost without someone as efficient and understanding as she is. And no, don’t think that there’s something going on between the two of us. Even though she’s slightly younger than I am, and a hot woman who knows how to rock professional attire, we’ve never crossed that unspoken line. In a way, I see her as some kind of protective older sister. Which is kinda fitting, since I don’t have a family of my own. Sure, I have a bitchy ex-wife and a stepdaughter currently wasting her life away in Europe, but it’s not like I can call them my family.

“Yeah, I’m good,” I tell her, somehow managing to fake a smile as I sit up straight in my chair. “What’s up?”

“I think you should turn on the TV,” she says, narrowing her eyes. Without waiting for me to do a thing, she walks all the way to my side, snags the remote sitting by the side of the intercom, and points it at the flat screen mounted on one of the walls.

“Good Day USA?” I ask her, cocking one eyebrow as I see the familiar logo and presenter brightening up the TV screen. It isn’t like anything good comes from that TV show. Although they fashion themselves as real news, Good Day USA is just a tabloid show hiding under a professional skin.

“Good Day USA,” Cheryl confirms. “Just watch it,” she continues, casually waving her remote at the screen and turning up the volume.

“...back to Susan at JFK Airport, where Eliza Seymour has just landed and…” I stop listening at that, watching as the screen pans to a reporter standing in one of the JFK arrival areas. Behind her a bunch of reporters and cameramen crowd together, waiting for the woman I once called my daughter.

“Holy shit,” I mutter under my breath. “Is she coming back to the States?”

“Seems like it,” Cheryl nods without taking her eyes off the screen. “Your daughter’s back. Her trust fund has just kicked in, and she came back to the states to sit down on the Seymour throne, it seems.”

Eliza Seymour, in charge of the whole Seymour fortune. Now that’s interesting.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Cheryl whispers, and I look up at her and smile.

“You bet I am,” I merely say, the contour of a plan taking shape in my mind.