Page 27 of Iggy

“Neela.” Halpern’s voice arrived polished and low, the same voice he used when he wanted her to believe the damage was already being managed by men in better rooms. “I’m looking at it.”

“Looking at it?” she said. Her laugh came out wrong, sharp and airless. “I’ve got a screen full of red and a door full of wolves, and you’re looking at it?”

“The move is disorderly,” he said.

“Disorderly is when somebody gets drunk and breaks a chair. This is a cliff.”

There was a pause on his end, and in that pause she heard keyboards, another voice calling something muffled, the sterile panic of money people trying not to sound like prey. It should have comforted her, knowing he was scared too. It did not. Fear in his office meant her fear had a balance sheet.

“There’s a liquidity issue,” Halpern said. “Bids are thinning out. We’re seeing forced selling from a few funds. It may be technical.”

“May be?” Neela leaned over the desk until her knuckles pressed white against the wood. “I don’t pay you may-be money.”

“The thesis hasn’t changed.”

“The price changed. The margin changed. My account changed.” Her eyes jumped to the figure at the bottom of the dashboard, the one that was supposed to be temporary, the one she had stopped breathing around. “Tell me exactly how much we’re down.”

“Across all positions?”

She closed her eyes. For one horrible second she was back in the church basement where they used to hold votes before the clubhouse, passing a coffee can full of cash from hand to hand while rain hammered the windows.

She saw the faces that money belonged to: Roach with his busted front tooth, Mercy with oil under every nail, June counting twenties twice because she did not trust luck, Tank watching the door. She had told herself investing it was protection. Growth. A way to make the club untouchable. But the word inside her now was theft.

“Do not make me ask twice,” she said. Halpern exhaled through his nose.

“Currently, unrealized loss is thirteen point eight.”

“Million.”

“Yes.”

The room narrowed. The walls did not move, but they came closer anyway, pressing the hot air against her face, squeezing her ribs until every breath had to argue its way in. Thirteen point eight.

She tried to make the number behave. Tried to put commas in it, subtract what they had made last quarter, add the cash still sitting in the safe, build a bridge over the hole before anyone saw the bottom.

But the arithmetic slipped and rearranged itself into pictures: Tank’s eyes when he understood, Mercy’s mouth going flat, Roach reaching for his belt, the charter vote turning into a trial.

From the other side of the door, Tank knocked again.

“Neela.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The team threw out every option they thought they might have in handling Neela and the GS team. Just as they were prepared to give it up for now, there was a soft knock at the door. Ella, Rose, Tinley, and Jean were walking into the room.

“Is something wrong?” asked Ham.

“Not necessarily wrong,” said Tinley. “At least not for us. Remember that I kept the books for a one-percenter club before I met Eagle. Clubs have changed over the years but something the feds always missed was exactly what’s happening here. Clubs invest. The one I was forced to work for invested as well. Stupidly. But they invested.”

“I’m not sure I get where you’re going,” said Iggy.

“Simple. We help them play the game,” said Rose. “We guide them, or more accurately, Neela, to certain investments, making them appealing. Jean was able to find their investment trail online. They have a broker they’re using, sketchy, but a broker nevertheless.”

“Jean?” asked Ham.

“They just lost almost fourteen million in only a few minutes. Their broker advised them poorly and Neela is panicked. This broker is desperate and if we present something to them that sounds easy, I assure you they will bite. We also found out that they promised the Swamp Rats twenty million.”

“Why?” asked Christian.