New York at Year's End (3)
The charity gala was being held at the Five Seasons Hotel in New York, near Times Square.
We headed to the venue in a limousine.
The limousine’s interior was spacious enough for ten people, and I sat across from her.
The emerald silk evening gown she wore clung to every curve of her body, with a long slit running up one side.
When a beautiful woman dressed like that sat across from me, it was hard to know where I was supposed to look.
I turned to the window for no reason at all, and Sarah spoke up.
“I’m a little nervous. I’m not really used to parties like this.”
That surprised me.
“Really? I figured you’d have been to plenty of parties.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because you’re a princess.”
She laughed out loud at that.
“I told you before, didn’t I? When I was in America, I was just a college student. When I was little, I thought my father was an ordinary man. I never once imagined he was royal, or that my grandfather was the King of Saudi Arabia.”
“How did you feel when you found out?”
“Not much, really. As you know, Saudi Arabia has princes and princesses everywhere—there are so many of them they’re like stars in the night sky.”
Roughly fifteen thousand, if I had to guess.
Only a tiny percentage of them ever got to enjoy real power; the rest were royal in name only.
Maybe if Rashid hadn’t gone to study in the United States, she would have lived an ordinary life too. But after she met her cousin Rashid, her life changed completely.
She really did become a princess.
Then a thought suddenly struck me.
When she had first met Rashid, he had been nothing more than one prince among many. He hadn’t risen to the center of power until after he returned to Saudi Arabia, and he only became Crown Prince recently.
“Why did you decide to work for the Crown Prince?”
“For the money, of course. They pay very well.”
“Is that really all?”
She had the authority to direct PIF funds, and she had also been deeply involved in the coup—enough that she was counted among Rashid’s inner circle.
Sarah thought for a moment before answering.
“When I was young, my father told me a story about Princess Misha. She was his niece, but in reality she was five years older than him.”
When a Saudi king or royal family had as many wives and children as they did, the age gap between siblings could be fifty years or more.
So it wasn’t strange at all for an aunt or uncle to be younger than a niece or nephew.
“Apparently, she was as lovely and kind as a princess from a fairy tale. That’s why the king and the rest of the royal family adored her.”
Sarah told me her story as though she were reading out of a picture book.
“Princess Misha dreamed of Europe and begged to be sent there to study. But Europe was too far away, and they said it would be hard to preserve Arab traditions there, so they only allowed her to study in Lebanon, the neighboring country.”
Lebanon was a Muslim country too, but it was far more open than Saudi Arabia.
“There, Princess Misha met a young man named Saer, and the two fell in love. When the royal family found out, they immediately called the princess back.”
Knowing that if she returned to Saudi Arabia she would never see Saer again, Princess Misha dug in her heels and refused to go back.
In response, the royal family dispatched agents to force her home.
When Princess Misha learned of this, she staged a suicide and tried to flee to Paris with the man she loved.
But…
“Saudi agents were already waiting at the airport, and the two of them were arrested and sent back to Saudi Arabia.”
Dating or marrying without the family’s permission was unthinkable. In Saudi Arabia, that was treated as a stain on the family’s honor.
When that happened, the head of the family would kill the person involved to restore the family’s honor. That was what they called an honor killing.
Of course, that was just what they told themselves. In reality, it was still murder.
“What happened after that?”
“The king told the princess that he would spare her if she denied her love for that man. She was to say that no feelings and no relationship had ever existed between them. Princess Misha knew that if she agreed, she would live—but the man she loved would die. So she refused the king’s request and chose death instead.”
Her words made me gasp.
“They killed a princess anyway?”
“The merciful king showed mercy.”
I let out a breath of relief.
“Thank goodness.”
“In cases like that, tradition calls for death by stoning, so they granted her a shooting execution instead.”
“……”
What astonishing mercy.
In the end, Princess Misha was shot in the head and died in front of the man she loved, while Saer was sentenced to beheading.
Most countries regarded it as a tragic love story, but Saudis saw it as the royal family simply doing what tradition required.
“My father was so shocked when he saw it as a child that he vowed never to set foot on Saudi soil again when he grew up. That’s why he left for America.”
“I see.”
So that was why he had given up his royal status and become a naturalized American citizen.
Fortunately, unlike princesses, princes could study abroad anywhere they wanted and meet whomever they pleased.
The discrimination applied only to women.
It was an unbelievable story, even if it had happened some forty years ago, and yet it was true.
Still, Saudi Arabia wasn’t quite like that anymore. Officially, they no longer carried out stoning or beheading.
Well, maybe they were doing it quietly somewhere out of sight…
“Rashid has always said he wants to make Saudi Arabia a better place. I believe him.”
Her father had severed his ties with Saudi Arabia after witnessing Princess Misha’s death. But Sarah wanted to reform the country so that something like that would never happen again.
“If you want to improve women’s rights, you have to develop the economy. And to do that, you need money.”
“Exactly.”
If they just shouted about ending discrimination against women while leaving the current social system and resource-dependent economy unchanged, no one would listen.
But if they developed manufacturing and tourism, and nurtured new industries?
Then women’s participation in society would increase, and that could lead to real improvements in women’s rights.
“Honestly, I’m not even sure how much I can do.”
“A challenge is valuable in itself.”
I thought back to my first life.
She had made a name for herself in the financial world as an operator at PIF. As far as I knew, she never married, so maybe she had kept working all that time to change Saudi Arabia from within.
So that was why she had chosen to help Crown Prince Rashid.
After hearing her story, she seemed different to me.
What, exactly, could I do from here on?
“I was a little nervous about going alone, so thank you for coming with me.”
It wasn’t as though she truly had no one else to go with. So I could take that as a sign of kindness, couldn’t I?
“I should be the one thanking you for inviting me.”
While we talked, the limousine arrived at the Five Seasons Hotel.
Security began from the entrance itself. Luxury cars filed in one after another, and the staff were kept busy with valet parking.
We got out, stepped onto the red carpet, and went inside.
As soon as we entered the party hall, Sarah’s looks drew everyone’s attention.
Which meant I, standing right beside her, ended up catching some of that attention too.
It wasn’t as if some otherworldly scene unfolded just because this was an upper-class party.
On one side, classical musicians were playing, while clusters of people stood around chatting cheerfully.
There were plenty of different ethnicities, as one would expect in New York, but white guests still made up the majority. Maybe around eighty percent, if I had to guess.
In keeping with the charity gala concept, the guests made donations, and those donations were then handed over to various foundations.
Seeing all this and feeling strangely unbothered by it made me realize just how much money I’d made over the years.
There were a lot of people from the financial world here, and several of them had ties to PIF. That must have been why Sarah needed to show her face at this event.
While Sarah greeted the people she knew, I took a look around the hall.
Since this was an evening party, there was champagne and plenty of drinks, along with a wide spread of finger food. There were even hot wings.
I picked one up, took a bite, and shook my head.
No, that’s not how you fry chicken.
Even chicken served at a luxury hotel in New York couldn’t beat Korean fried chicken.
As a former franchise owner of a chicken restaurant, I almost wanted to drag a few chefs over and teach them how to fry chicken properly. And for the record, I had roughly nine years’ worth of limited chicken recipes in my head.
If I’d started a chicken shop with that, would I have done well?
The Successful Chicken Shop of a Regressor, maybe.
As I nibbled on a few things here and there and watched the room, a handsome blond young man approached and spoke to me.
“Hello. My name is Eric Rose. I’m the head of the investment team at the Rose Organization.”
“Yes, nice to meet you.”
I knew the name.
The Rose Organization was a real-estate conglomerate founded by the Rose family. They were involved in construction, development, trading, brokerage, investment, asset management, and resort operations.
The Roses were one of New York’s famous real-estate dynasties, and there were several landmarks in the city that the family had built and still owned.
And John Rose, the CEO of the company, was currently serving as New York City’s deputy mayor.
Unlike Korea, where business and politics were somewhat separated, it wasn’t unusual in the United States for business leaders to enter politics.
Take Michael Bloomberg, for example. He served three terms as mayor of New York City, and his personal fortune was around eighty billion dollars. That was more than the combined wealth of the top ten richest people in Korea.
In the last presidential race, he jumped into the Democratic primary and spent around a billion dollars. When his poll numbers didn’t rise the way he’d hoped, he dropped out with admirable coolness.
As expected of the birthplace of capitalism.
“I saw that you came in with Director Avery. Are you with PIF?”
I supposed he was curious about the Asian man who had arrived with a Saudi princess.
I wasn’t the type who enjoyed attention, but there was no need to hide who I was in a place like this.
I smiled and said, “My name is Han Miru. I’m a co-CEO at Continue Capital.”
Recently, if you asked people to name the most famous private equity firm, everyone would point to Continue Capital.
Founded less than two years ago, the firm had already become an investment house recognized around the world.
Most investment firms bought and sold stocks; they didn’t often dabble in short selling or options.
There were firms like Empty Pool Research that specialized in short selling, but their scale wasn’t very large and their odds of success weren’t especially high.
But Continue Capital was different.
It had made its name in the first place by bringing down Thomas Motors.
After that, it continued building its reputation through one successful short after another.
Whenever it saw an opportunity, it never hesitated to pour in all its capital—and those bets always paid off in a big way.
Just recently, it had even sent one of America’s Big Five companies, Facenote, straight into the abyss.
It wasn’t just famous for short selling; it was also notorious for using every method available to drive a stock into the ground.
Even so, beyond its fame, little was known about the firm because it was run as a family office.
In particular, unlike Representative Lockhart, who appeared often in media interviews, the other co-CEO was almost unknown except for his name.
Either way, David Lockhart must have played a huge role in building Continue Capital from what was essentially nothing.
And now he was standing here in person.
Naturally, that drew everyone’s attention.
“A co-CEO of Continue Capital?”
“You mean that Han Miru?”
“What’s his relationship with Director Avery?”
“They seem pretty close.”
“Continue Capital and PIF are working together through Rush Fund, after all.”
Unlike California, where there were plenty of nouveau riche types—Hollywood stars, startup founders, all sorts of newly minted millionaires—New York was full of old money with history and pedigree behind it.
That made New York high society extremely closed off.
People who were merely decently rich didn’t even get invited in.
But that only applied to people who were merely decently rich. Once the money became unimaginably large, the rules changed.
The women at the party were clearly interested too.
“He’s that young?”
“You’re saying that guy’s running Continue Capital with Representative Lockhart?”
“Just how much money does he have?”
One woman’s eyes gleamed as she looked at me.
So that’s Han Miru?