Chapter 43

43

ALEX

A fter a terrible night's sleep at Nana's apartment, I turn up at the office, and Mei hustles over to my desk, dark-blue pantsuit impeccable and swishing around her legs.

"Something big is going down," she says quietly, cracking gum.

Blinking at her, I pull my laptop out of my bag. "Like what?"

"People were asked to come in early this morning for a meeting."

She studies her phone screen then drags her finger down it.

"What are you looking at?"

"Industry news. I thought there might be a story leaking if something was going down. All the main heads of departments were called in."

"How did you find that out?"

She smirks at me and taps her nose.

I glance over at our supervisor Marie's office in the corner. It's empty, but that's not particularly unusual. Everyone's head is down.

" C à o , I hope they're not laying people off. I can't afford to lose this job, Alex. I just got out of those waitressing jobs I was shoved into because of my accent." She chews a nail.

"They can't get rid of you, Mei. You're the only one here with the contacts and the understanding to make any sense of our investments in China."

She rolls her shoulders when I say that, her body easing.

Marie appears at the other end of the open-plan space, and Mei grimaces at me and sashays back to her desk. Marie goes into her glass office and closes the door, sinking into her seat and staring out the window. The way she's just sitting there makes a shiver run down my spine.

Pete, who sits across from me, says suddenly, "All staff meeting in ten." And sure enough, the notification is in my Slack channel, too. It's going to be held on this floor.

A few minutes later, managers start appearing at the end of the room. A team of five senior people turn up, and God, it's anyone who's anyone here—the chief exec, the head of operations. People leave their desks and walk toward them. I recognize the lady from HR who did all the paperwork when I joined, and haven't seen since. Marie comes out and stands by the door of her office, staring straight ahead and not meeting anyone's eyes. The low hum of voices builds as people all head down the center aisle to the front of the room.

Philip Ackerman, our CEO, clears his throat:

"I want to say before I begin that we really value our employees here at East River Capital Markets. We know how hard you all work and we hold you all in high regard. Recently, the board decided on a partial shift in strategy, and our derivatives team, which has been particularly successful up to now, took some positions in some technology companies …

The words fade in and out. Technology companies. I glance at Marie but she's staring straight ahead.

Positioning myself out of the line of sight, I study people's faces as heat creeps up my throat. Mei's eyes are huge and fixed on me, and I shake my head at her.

"Unfortunately, one of those investments, in a company called ForceX, went badly, very quickly. We got out fast, but the damage was substantial. An investigation is being undertaken into the whole process around the stock acquisition, and rest assured, we will be putting the processes and checks and balances in place to make sure nothing like this happens again. There is an outstanding question of whether we as a business were set up. However, what it means in the short-term is that 10 percent of the workforce is going to be laid off, effective immediately."

Coldness creeps over my body. I wrote a substantial piece about ForceX in the report I produced for Marie. I talked to Des, who gave me lots of information on them. We talked about the risks at length . There was a lot of research throughout that report. How well did I caveat what I wrote? Suddenly, I want to read it all back. ForceX has been a darling of the venture capital industry for a while. Surely, they didn't just take my document as gospel? That would be insane, right?

"I'm going to read out a list of names now, and I want everyone I read out to come forward. The rest of you can go back to your desks when I've finished."

And I know what's coming. If they've linked it back to me, I'll be first in the firing line. Sure enough, the first name he calls out is:

"Alex Sachs."

When I'm escorted from the building, I'm reeling. They took me straight upstairs to an office on the top floor, five of them asking questions. And I started cooperatively, answering everything, but then nerves set in about what I was saying and what someone might read into it, so I shut up and said I needed a lawyer before I could say anything more. There's no question that they're trying to blame me. One of the people was a federal investigator! They told me that I couldn't go back to my desk, and I wouldn't be able to access any of my files. Every piece of work I did for them is on their system, all my emails. They took my laptop; they even took my phone . My heart races as I run my hands through my hair. Who did I communicate with? What did I say? All the messages on my devices, email, Slack, I have no way of accessing any of it. No way of looking at that document. And conversations with Des … Grindr … Fuck. Fuck.

Where do I even start? As I head down the street, nothing has changed—oblivious people walking along talking on a sunny Manhattan day. A workman on some scaffolding shouts something down to his coworker below. But there's nothing in my hands or my pockets now except Nana's keys.

How much money have they lost?

No way can I go home. God only knows what my parents would say. My dad would go ballistic and blame me and he wouldn't want this to get out to the wider family. A shudder runs through me. Nana would be sympathetic, but it's unlikely she'd know anyone who can help me in a situation like this. All my friends are people I know from school and … well … they wouldn't know any more than me about something like this.

The only person I can think of is Des. But I haven't seen or heard from him since that awful dinner with the Silvermans. Christ, was it only two days ago? It feels like forever. I've texted him constantly, called him, too. Short of turning up at his apartment or his work, what else I can do?

All my life and all these people and I have no one to turn to when something goes badly wrong.