PART 2: Grant stared at the number on his screen as if it had personally betrayed him.
PART 2: Grant stared at the number on his screen as if it had personally betrayed him.“What exactly do you know?” he asked.
I reached for my cracked phone. This time, he gave it back.
“Enough to know your analysts are pricing tomorrow with last quarter’s assumptions.”
Derek smirked. “Come on, Grant. She’s a waitress.”
Nolan wasn’t laughing anymore.
“What covenant?” he asked me.
“The leverage ratio tied to the refinancing facility.”
Grant’s eyes lifted sharply.
That was when I knew he had found it.
The company had reported manageable debt, but a subsidiary filing revealed something uglier: falling cash flow had pushed its ratios dangerously close to triggering accelerated repayment. If commodity prices moved another three percent against them, lenders could demand cash the company didn’t have.
Grant stood so suddenly his chair scraped across the marble floor.
“Excuse us.”
He grabbed my elbow.
I pulled away.
“You can speak to me without touching me.”
For half a second, anger flashed across his face. Then something more unfamiliar replaced it.
Respect.
Or fear.
He lowered his voice. “Who are you?”
“Your waitress.”
“No.”
I glanced toward my other tables. “Table twelve needs coffee.”
“Fiona.”
Hearing my name from him felt different now.
“How did you find this?”
“Public documents.”
“My entire research division missed it.”
“That sounds expensive.”
Nolan covered a smile.
Grant didn’t.
He opened a trading app, then stopped before placing an order.
“If I sell now and you’re wrong, I lose millions.”
“If you wait until the market understands it, you lose more.”
Silence settled over the table.
Then Grant asked the question no one expected.
“How much would you bet?”
I thought about my mother’s hospital bills stacked beside my bed. My overdue rent. The nineteen dollars currently sitting in my checking account.
“Everything I had.”
Grant studied me for several seconds.
Then he made the call.
“Cut the position. All of it.”
Derek nearly choked.
But before Grant could finish, Nolan’s phone buzzed.
He glanced down.
His face changed.
“Grant,” he whispered.
A financial news alert had appeared.
NORTHSTAR RESEARCH IDENTIFIED.
Below the headline was a photograph.
Mine.
Grant slowly turned toward me.
And then I saw the source credited beneath it.
Holloway Capital.
Someone inside his own company had exposed me.
…
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Disclaimer: This story is fictional and created for entertainment purposes only.
Any names, characters, places, or events are fictitious or used fictitiously.
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