Chapter 1My Enemy Built My Alibi

One slip of the finger. That was all it took for fifteen billion dollars of the firm’s capital to vaporize in an instant, leaving us a hundred billion in debt to the exchange.

I was literally calculating the terminal velocity of a human body dropping from a forty-fourth-floor window, wondering if it would be enough to end things instantly.

That was when my sworn enemy kicked the door open, flanked by the entire legal team, and hurled a stack of glossy photographs right into my face.

"During the most critical thirty minutes of the trading day, you—a Senior Trader at this firm—were busy sneaking off to sexually harass an intern!" he roared. "Look at these photos, Stratton. You're going to rot in federal prison!"

I stared down at the blurry, overexposed shots of a man's back pressed against a girl in a corner. I could feel a hysterical, breathless laugh bubbling up in my throat, stinging my eyes.

If I was supposedly busy committing sexual assault during that exact half-hour... then the hundred-billion-dollar fat-finger error that just blew up the firm wasn't my problem anymore, was it?

* * *

On the massive curved monitor of my terminal, the red candlestick line plunged downward, stretching longer than my life expectancy.

The entire market was ripping into a historic bull run!

And I was trapped in a massive, catastrophic short. The account had completely blown out.

The blood in my veins turned to ice water. I collapsed back into my ergonomic mesh chair, but I couldn't feel it supporting my weight. I was in freefall.

How had this happened?

Thirty-six consecutive hours of hyper-focused screen time will do that to you. Your brain turns to static. Just seconds ago, in a micro-moment of exhaustion-induced vertigo, my finger had slipped on the mouse.

Just a microscopic spasm of a muscle.

A long position, mistakenly entered as a short.

Shorting the market during an extreme, historic rally was like standing on the train tracks and trying to stop a freight train with your bare hands.

I could only watch, paralyzed, as fifteen billion dollars bled out of the firm's accounts, plunging violently past zero into a negative deficit. It became an astronomical number. A number I couldn't pay back in this lifetime, or the next, or the next.

No way to cancel the order.

No way to reverse it.

No chance for a remedy.

My mind was a white, blinding void. Only one crystal-clear thought managed to cut through the static:

It's over.

I hadn't just destroyed the firm; I had chained myself to a debt that would crush a small nation. According to my employment contract, a catastrophic operational failure of this magnitude made me personally liable.

My condo in Manhattan. My car. The modest suburban house my parents had worked their whole lives to pay off. The surgical fund I had painstakingly saved for my mother’s treatments...

Everything would be seized, liquidated, and auctioned off. And it wouldn't even make a dent. It would be a single drop of water tossed into a raging ocean.

Three generations of my family, dragged down into the abyss because of my twitching finger.

I was a sinner.

A metallic, coppery taste rose in the back of my throat, but I didn't even have the strength to cough.

Over the years, I had generated tens of billions in pure profit for this firm. I was an industry myth. The guy they whispered about. The Wolf of Wall Street incarnate.

But what did that matter?

In the capital markets, it doesn't matter how many times you win. One catastrophic failure is all it takes to condemn you to hell.

I should leave a note, I thought.

My legs felt like they had been filled with wet concrete as I dragged myself toward the floor-to-ceiling windows of the forty-fourth floor. If I threw myself against the reinforced glass hard enough, it would shatter. The pavement below would make it quick.

Mom... I'm so sorry.

But just as my hand pressed against the cool glass.

Bang!

The explosive sound of the heavy mahogany doors flying open made my eardrums ring.

My rival, the Director of Trading, Bradley Hawthorne, stormed onto the floor. Behind him was a parade of suits from the legal and HR departments.

"Miles!"

He barked my name with a ferocious, unrestrained glee, slamming a thick stack of photographs directly against my chest. The sharp edge of the photo paper sliced across my cheekbone. A hot, stinging pain followed.

I looked down, picking one of the photos off the carpet.

In the grainy image, a man had a woman pinned against a wall in a shadowed alcove. The posture was aggressive, undeniable.

"During the most critical thirty minutes of the trading day, you—a Senior Trader at this firm—were busy sneaking off to sexually harass an intern!" Bradley's voice was sharp, practically vibrating with triumph. "Look at these photos, Stratton. You're going to rot in federal prison!"

I froze.

Sexual harassment?

A half-hour ago?

Wasn't that... the exact timeframe of my fat-finger mistake?

I stared at the glossy paper in my hand, then slowly shifted my gaze to the catastrophic, blood-red deficit flashing on my monitors.

A tidal wave of pure, unadulterated euphoria violently shattered through my despair.