You are a sunk cost, Elena.
He’d said it two years earlier during yet another lecture about my “small thinking.” It had landed in my chest like a stone and never really moved.
I lowered the phone.
If they wanted a buzzsaw, I’d sell it to them.
Using a shell company I’d set up for exactly this kind of opportunity, I bought Blackwood’s distressed debt. Not some of it. All of it.
By the end of the week, the fund I controlled was the majority holder of everything Blackwood owed to everyone.
In this business, power doesn’t always come from owning the shiny assets.
Sometimes it comes from owning the trouble.
I flew to New York, sat across from Blackwood’s original founders in a white-walled conference room that smelled like espresso and fear, and offered them a way out.
“We’re not shutting you down,” I said, sliding the term sheet across the table. “We’re cleaning you up. You keep your licenses, your staff, and your client list under a new structure.
I get control of the board, compliance, and any new partner capital that comes in.”
One of them rubbed his face with both hands.
“You’re vultures,” he muttered.
“I’m a recycling center,” I corrected politely. “You built something messy. I make sure the mess doesn’t bury us all.”
They signed.
People almost always do when the alternative is watching the FBI carry their hard drives out in cardboard boxes on the local news.
On the flight back to Chicago, I stared out the window at the quilt of lights below and let the new reality settle.
Julian wasn’t about to be made partner at Blackwood.
He was about to apply for a job at my company without knowing it.
“Stand in the corner, Elena. Your miserable face ruins the energy of the signing.”
My mother had practically shoved me toward the sideboard when we got to the downtown office that morning.
Blackwood’s Chicago conference room was all glass and sharp edges: floor-to-ceiling windows framing the skyline, a view of the river curling through steel and stone, a table big enough to land a small plane on. The kind of room Arthur had fantasized about from his recliner for decades.
“Just pour the water properly,” Philippa whispered, nails digging into my forearm.
“Servitude is all you’re good at. Don’t let your bad luck haunt this family’s money.”
I’d said nothing. Just lifted the pitcher, felt the cold slick of condensation on my fingers, and took my place against the wall.
From there, I watched.
Arthur sat near the middle of the table, directly across from the empty chair reserved for the “senior partner.” He kept swiping his palms down his tie, the silk shining under the recessed lights.
The skin around his eyes was gray, a man running on caffeine and denial.
Julian was posted up at the head like he was on a magazine cover, one ankle resting casually on his knee, cufflinks flashing every time he gestured. He’d upgraded his suit for the occasion – navy blue, slim cut, the kind of thing you buy on a store card at a place where they hand you bourbon while you pick out tailoring.
“You should be taking notes, Elena,” Arthur said without looking at me. “Your brother is about to secure this family’s legacy while you… what is it you do again?
Clip coupons?”
He waved a hand around the room.
“This is what thinking big looks like. Julian is an asset. You?
Investing in you for thirty years has been the biggest loss of my life. You’re a sunk cost. At least try to be useful today.”
The words should have stung.
Once, they would have.
Now, they just confirmed what I already knew.
Arthur wasn’t analyzing his portfolio.
He was justifying his addiction.
Julian bounced his foot under the table, knee hitting the underside with a dull thud. Sweat darkened the collar of his shirt just a shade, a crescent of damp that no one else would notice.
“Relax, Dad,” he said, though his laugh came out too high. “I’ve got this.
It’s a done deal. They begged me to come aboard.”
He’d told everyone that. At family dinners.
At backyard barbecues. On Facebook, where he posted inspirational quotes about hustle and grind over stock photos of yachts.
He talked about the $150,000 buy-in like it was a mere formality.
To Arthur, it was the number that would finally make all his sacrifices make sense.
“Once this clears,” he’d told my mother over and over, “we’ll refinance the house, pick up that condo in Boca. Golf every morning, ocean every afternoon.
This is our payoff, Philippa. The dividend.”
He’d already spent the money in his head.
What he hadn’t seen were the late notices from his credit card companies, the fact that his FICO score was barely holding on, the way his precious “primary residence” at 42 Oak Street had quietly slipped from asset to collateral in the eyes of every lender in Cook County.
He didn’t see those things because he refused to look. Looking would have meant reconsidering Julian.
He would set himself on fire before he let that happen.
I moved down the line of glasses, pouring water with steady hands.
The pitcher was heavy but familiar, a prop I’d used my entire life.
As I filled Julian’s glass, he turned his head just enough to murmur to Arthur.
“Relax. I fixed the numbers. It looks perfect.”
Arthur’s breath hitched.
“You’re sure they can’t tell?” he asked.
“It’s just a PDF, Dad,” Julian whispered back.
“Nobody looks that closely.”
I topped off his glass and stepped away.
Water girl.
Furniture.
Predator.
The glass door to the hallway opened with a soft hydraulic sigh.
Sterling walked in like a verdict.
He was a big man, broad-shouldered in a charcoal suit that fit like it had been sewn directly onto him, tie the color of midnight, shoes polished within an inch of their lives. He carried a leather portfolio in one hand, city-issue ID badge clipped unobtrusively to his belt.
Three years earlier, I’d poached him from a top forensic accounting firm that specialized in cleaning up corporate crime scenes. He’d walked me through more than one mess where “creative” CFOs had ended up in handcuffs.
Today, he was on my payroll.
Arthur and Julian didn’t know that.
Sterling gave a courteous nod to the room, shook Arthur’s hand when it was offered, and only then turned to Julian.
“Mr.
Vance,” he said, voice smooth enough to pour over ice. “I’ve heard a lot about your ambition.”
Julian stood so fast he knocked his knee against the underside of the table.
“Mr. Sterling,” he said, throat working.
“The honor’s mine.”
My mother beamed like she’d personally raised him for this moment.
“We’re very proud,” she said. “Julian has always thought bigger than the rest of us.”
She didn’t bother to glance in my direction when she said it.
Sterling took the empty chair opposite Julian and opened his portfolio with a neat, practiced motion. The room seemed to shrink around us, all that glass suddenly feeling less like a window and more like a display case.
“Excitement is good,” Sterling said.
“Solvency is better. Let’s keep this efficient. We have a tight window to close this round before the Asian markets open.
I assume you have the proof of liquidity we discussed?”
Julian smoothed a hand down his tie.
“Of course,” he said. “I’m not here to waste anyone’s time.”
He reached for his leather briefcase and slid it onto the table with a practiced flourish. The latch clicked like a starting gun.
From the corner, my mother snapped her fingers.
“Elena,” she hissed, spotting the empty coaster in front of Sterling.
“Water. And try not to spill it this time. Honestly, do we have to teach you everything?”
I picked up the pitcher.
Once upon a time, remarks like that would have made my throat tighten, my hands shake.
Now, they were just noise.
I moved to the table and poured Sterling’s water with the same precision I’d used to run regressions at 2:00 a.m.
in grad school. Not a drop spilled. The room’s attention snapped back to the important people as soon as I stepped away.
Nobody looks at the help.
That’s the secret.
When people don’t look at you, they forget you’re in the room.
They say things they shouldn’t. They show their tells.
Julian slid a thick cream-colored envelope across the table toward Sterling.
“Here are the certified bank statements,” he said, pride swelling his chest. “Proof of one hundred fifty thousand dollars in liquid cash, ready to transfer.”
The number landed in the air like the answer to a prayer.
$150,000.
Arthur’s fingers twitched against the tabletop.
Sterling didn’t touch the envelope.
“We’ll get to that,” he said calmly.
“First, a small housekeeping issue.”
He glanced past Julian to me.
“Miss?”
There it was.
The signal.
I
