Chapter 1

Chapter One

Olivia

Sydney Carter lifts her delicate little hand in the air. I wait to see if anyone else will. I think Sydney is fourteen years old. Maybe fifteen. She’s in high school. I don’t know the grade but I’m pretty sure she’s an underclassman. She’s part of a young entrepreneurs’ club, and since my Aunt Vera is the faculty advisor for the club, I always do one presentation per semester.

Nobody else raises a hand so I nod with a smile and say, “Sydney. Whatcha got for me?”

Sydney says, “I think opportunity cost is probably more important. Money you put into one opportunity precludes putting it into another opportunity.”

She’s right, actually, but I want to know if she’s right for the right reasons. “But why is that more important than the project’s financials?”

“Because the project can be profitable but not be the best way to spend your money. If I can buy a necklace for a hundred dollars I can sell for a hundred and twenty, I made twenty dollars. Okay, I made twenty dollars. That’s great. But if there’s another necklace I can buy for a hundred dollars and it will sell for a hundred and fifty dollars, I made a bad decision.”

“But why not just do both?” Robert asks from two chairs down. He’s a cute boy a year or so older than Sydney. I’m pretty sure he has a crush on her. He looks at me and says, “Oh, sorry for interrupting.”

“It’s not a problem. Sydney, can you answer that?”

She nods and says, “Well, if we’re talking about necklaces, maybe we can. But what if I only have one hundred dollars. I have to choose one. I can’t choose both.”

“But you can buy one and then sell it and then buy the other one, right? Oh, sorry, Miss Morey.”

“It’s okay, Robert. This is the kind of discussion we want. Everyone just be respectful and don’t talk over each other. Go ahead, Sydney. Why not buy the necklace, sell it, and then go and get the other necklace?”

“Sure. That’s a great strategy. However, you want to buy the more profitable necklace first. The reason is that you have no guarantee the first one will still be available when you’re done selling the first.”

“Couldn’t you just ask the place selling the necklace to wait until you come back?” a girl in the back named Vanessa asks.

“Sure,” Sydney says, “but that doesn’t mean they’ll do it.” She looks at me, which means she’s running out of things to say. She sees very clearly how right she is but she doesn’t know how to explain it.

“Okay, let’s stop talking about necklaces,” I say, “and instead we’ll make it apartment buildings. Now it’s not as simple as buying one, selling it, and buying the other one, right? Now, you have to look at something called tied-up capital. Does anyone know what that means?”

Sydney raises her hand but Vanessa says, “Is that money you’ve spent on an un-liquid asset?”

“Good. Exactly, Vanessa. Except the word is illiquid . So, you can’t immediately get your money. It might be easy to get someone with a hundred-dollar necklace to wait for you to return. You’re going to have a harder time to get someone to wait with their four-hundred-thousand-dollar house, right?”

We talk a little longer about opportunity cost. I can tell which of the kids want to be entrepreneurial like me, primarily in the world of real estate, and which of the kids are more operationally driven. They’re entrepreneurial but they want to own traditional businesses. There are, of course, the kids who are in the club for social reasons and just for the yearbook picture. I feel energized like I always do when I leave.

I climb into my car and turn my music up high. I’m heading over to my latest project, a revamped apartment complex I’m aiming to make high scale. Well, as luxurious as this community can allow.

I take a left turn and then, there it is. My mood tanks almost immediately.

No, it’s not the apartment complex. It’s just a wide-open plot of land. It sits there like it’s mocking me, all the undeveloped potential just wasting away. The one failure in my long list of successes.

The Franklin Meadow project. It still seems to haunt my nightmares.

I had already had about nine projects under my belt when I came across this land. It was perfect. It could be commercial or residential or both. It was a flipping gold mine just sitting and doing nothing. So, I had my guy find the owner and make an offer.

And it was rejected.

That didn’t faze me, though. A lot of projects start with an initial rejection. I just set up a meeting with the guy. We had a cozy lunch which I paid for, and then I explained the untapped potential of the plot and some ideas I had for development.

He said thank you for lunch and no thank you to the deal.

He was smug and self-righteous. He wanted it to stay pristine. He made me feel like an evil land baron just interested in the fucking money and not the importance of a spot like that to the community. He never really gave me a clear reason for not selling.

Sure, he was good looking. In fact, he was incredibly hot, but in the end, he was just an asshole with more muscle than brains. He just couldn’t see the vision.I gave up and moved on, of course, but it was a bit of a blow to my ego, admittedly. And really, it was just this guy who seemed to enjoy taking me down a peg that really irked me. I mean, it’s not like I’m some lazy rich bitch making good on her daddy’s money. I worked hard for everything I had. It’s all my blood, sweat and tears. No one did jack shit for me.

I get to the apartment complex and park. I’m even angrier because now my mood has been spoiled from the high of the morning. I get out of my car and slam the door closed.I get going on my walk-through, making notes as I move. Things are looking decent but as usual, the contractors are trying to drag some things out and I’m not a fan of wasted time or wasted money.Granted, this is quite a big project. The complex has sat empty for two years. There’s a lot of work to be done. Honestly, I would have preferred to just tear the whole place down and start over, but initial projections made this route more affordable. Now, I’m beginning to have my doubts.

About two hours of walking up and down stairs and in and out of units, I head to the last two units, which are past the laundry room and the pool area. I turn out of the set of two units that face the opposite way and head across the pool area. There’s no water in it at the moment because it also needs a lot of work.

I don’t know why I didn’t see it earlier. Maybe I’m just too busy making my notes and checking something on my phone. I don’t know. I just know I look up and see thick smoke and then, I see flames that seemed to jump to the building I just left like some kind of acrobat.

In no time at all, my world seemed engulfed in flames and I was trapped by an empty pool.

“What the fuck is happening with my life today?!”

I call 911 and wait for the panic to settle in.