MARCUS POV
The email hit the news at 6 AM the next morning.
Marcus saw it on Bloomberg before his lawyer even called. His own words staring back at him on every screen across the city. An email from three years ago where he'd written to his acquisitions team: "We need to artificially inflate Winters's debt before the market opens. Make it look real. Make it look devastating."
He remembered sending that email. He remembered not thinking twice about it.
The news anchor reading it aloud made it sound different. Made it sound like a crime instead of strategy.
By 7 AM his phone had exploded. Sixty-three missed calls. His assistant texted: "Everyone's asking for statements."
By 7:30 AM, the recording dropped.
It was from a Sterling board meeting two years ago. Him, laughing. Actually laughing while he described crushing William Winters like an insect. Someone had recorded it. Someone he trusted had recorded him and waited for the perfect moment to release it to the world.
The recording played on every news station. His voice echoing across the country. His face zoomed in so everyone could see him smile while talking about destroying a man's life.
Marcus's hands were shaking when his lawyer finally picked up.
"Don't say anything to anyone," his lawyer said immediately. "Don't post on social media. Don't call the SEC. Don't do anything until we talk."
"Who released the email? Who recorded that meeting?"
"We're looking into it. For now you need to stay home and wait for instructions."
Marcus hung up and called Sebastian.
Sebastian didn't answer.
He tried again. And again. By the tenth call he understood that Sebastian wasn't going to pick up. His best friend since business school. The man who'd slept on his couch for three months when his startup failed. The man he'd given half a million dollars to when nobody else would invest.
Gone.
By noon his board members had started issuing statements. All of them distancing themselves. All of them saying they had no idea Marcus operated this way. All of them lying because they'd been in those meetings. They'd known exactly what he was doing.
The CEO of Goldman Sachs went on television and said Marcus Sterling was the worst kind of predator. A financial terrorist operating without conscience. The words played on repeat. Financial terrorist. Financial terrorist. Financial terrorist.
By Wednesday his bank called about his apartment.
"We're freezing your accounts pending the federal investigation," the banker said. She sounded nervous. Like she was afraid he might yell at her for delivering bad news.
He didn't have the energy to yell.
"How long?" he asked.
"We're not sure. Could be months."
Could be months. He had roughly four hundred thousand in liquid assets. His penthouse had a mortgage. His cars had loans. His lifestyle had been built on the assumption that the money would never stop.
The money stopped immediately.
By Thursday morning he was watching the stock market tank. Sterling Enterprises had been worth eight billion dollars. By close of trading it was worth four point two billion. His stake in the company, worth roughly 1.2 billion that morning, was worth 600 million by afternoon.
He wasn't a billionaire anymore.
He refreshed the page every thirty seconds watching the number get smaller. Like watching blood drain from a body.
On Friday the board called an emergency meeting. He watched it live on CNBC because they didn't invite him. Seven of his directors sat around a conference table and, without ever saying his name, methodically dismantled him.
"The company cannot survive association with this level of criminality," the board chair said.
"We're recommending immediate resignation and full cooperation with federal authorities," another director added.
"If he doesn't resign," a third director said, "we're voting him out."
They voted him out anyway.
He watched his own board vote 7-0 to remove him as CEO of the company he'd built from nothing. They didn't ask him to defend himself. They didn't ask his side of the story. They just voted and moved on to discussing his severance package, which they immediately cut in half because of "breach of fiduciary duty."
The camera panned across the conference room and for a split second it caught the empty chair where he should have been sitting.
His mother called that night.
"Don't call me again," she said before he could speak. "Whatever you've done, whatever this is, I don't want to know. I don't want to be connected to it."
"Mom, I'm your son."
"I know who you are, Marcus. That's the problem."
She hung up.
By the following Tuesday, his lawyer scheduled an appointment. When Marcus walked into the office, his lawyer looked like he'd aged ten years. He was holding a folder that seemed heavier than it should have been.
"Sit down," his lawyer said.
Marcus sat.
"The SEC has filed formal charges. Securities fraud, market manipulation, and conspiracy. The penalties are significant. We're looking at possible prison time. Years of it."
"How many years?"
"Depends on the trial. Could be anywhere from three to fifteen."
Fifteen years. Marcus would be fifty-eight years old. He tried to imagine himself at fifty-eight. Tried to imagine having a life left to live after that.
He couldn't.
"Your accounts are frozen," his lawyer continued. "Your assets are being seized. The government is building a case that you personally profited by manipulating stock prices. They have emails. They have recordings. They have testimony from your own team members."
"Who?" Marcus leaned forward. "Who testified against me?"
His lawyer pulled out a document. Marcus scanned the names. Every single person he'd trusted. Every person he'd promoted. Every person he'd given bonuses to was willing to burn him to save themselves.
"There's something else," his lawyer said quietly.
Marcus looked up.
His lawyer slid a document across the desk. Marcus's hands were numb when he picked it up. He couldn't feel the paper. Couldn't feel anything anymore.
It was a bankruptcy filing.
His lawyer was explaining it but the words weren't connecting. Something about personal liability. Something about his assets being seized. Something about accounts frozen and property repossessed and everything he owned belonging to the government now.
"What about my apartment?" Marcus asked.
"Being seized."
"My cars?"
"Seized."
"My savings?"
"Frozen. By the time we're done, you'll owe the government money. We're talking debt that could take decades to repay even if you find employment."
Employment. Like Marcus Sterling could just walk into somewhere and be hired. Like anyone in the country didn't know his face. Didn't know what he'd done. Didn't know that he was the worst kind of criminal there was.
A criminal in a suit.
A criminal with a college degree and a penthouse and a best friend who'd stabbed him in the back the moment he was useful.
"I need you to understand something," his lawyer said. "You're going to lose everything. Your money, your reputation, your freedom probably. You need to prepare for the fact that your life as you know it is over."
Marcus nodded like he understood. Like this was information he could process.
He couldn't.
He left the lawyer's office in a daze. The streets of Manhattan looked different now. Or maybe he was different now. Maybe he was finally seeing the city the way William Winters had seen it. From the bottom looking up.
His phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number.
"You destroyed a man once. Now let's watch you become one. See you soon."
Marcus stared at the message for a long time. Trying to understand who would send it. Trying to understand what it meant.
Then another text came through.
This one had an address. Winters & Co. And a time. 9 AM tomorrow.
And underneath it, only two words.
"Job interview."