Realizing the Profit
TY Telecom’s stock had been sliding toward the daily limit down day after day. Anyone could see why from the stream of headlines flooding out every morning.
Every outlet was churning out stories about TY Telecom. Every one of them spread word of the company’s worst crisis yet. A single suspicious article hinting at trouble could send a stock price down, and now confirmed disaster after confirmed disaster was pouring out in public.
Tom could not help asking James about it.
"James! How on earth did you know?"
"The timing was uncanny. It just happened to line up. I didn’t expect it to blow up this badly either."
James’s short sale had not been realized yet, but even so, the profits were already enormous. The tenfold leverage he had used was working exactly as hard as it could.
"Haha. I followed you in too, James... and the profit’s insane."
"Oh? Congratulations, Tom."
"I can cash out any time now, James."
"......"
James weighed TY Telecom’s response, and the reach of the company’s influence.
Of course, the other side still did not even know who had struck them, but James was more than satisfied with the effect this time had produced.
And the guys who were tailing me are all gone too...
With the company in crisis, they had not had the time to keep watching him. Right now, it looked as if the company itself was on the verge of collapse.
The profit’s juicy enough...
He had thrown the entire $30 million from the sale of the Texas land into this investment, and it had made him an even larger asset holder than before.
I think the declaration of war is pretty clear by now.
Once James stopped the terror attacks on TY Telecom’s facilities, the stock would likely stop falling and begin to recover.
"Please realize the profit, Tom."
"Understood, James!"
The massive short-covering buy order gave TY Telecom’s stock a brief rebound, but the effect did not last. By the close that day, and again the next, TY Telecom continued its slow slide. The stock had now reached the point where everyone thought it had almost hit bottom.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Now that he was free to move, James set aside his focus on TY Telecom and headed for the airport.
"James. Thank you for changing your mind and agreeing to attend."
"I’ve got two artifacts in the auction. It would be rude not to show up, I suppose. As long as it doesn’t become obvious that I was the one who consigned them."
The auction was something James had initially planned to skip out of pure annoyance, but after learning what kind of power the man confirmed to be his biological father held, he changed his mind.
If he wanted to stand against him, he would need influence of his own. And Sotheby’s auction was where the people with real global reach gathered.
"Haha. I’ll make absolutely sure your identity stays hidden."
James did not plan to take part directly in the auction, but if he could use the occasion to build ties with powerful figures, that would be worthwhile enough.
"Feels like I’m going on a trip for the first time in ages. Heh."
"Colt, are you already bored?"
Colt was with James as well. He had consigned a meteorite to the auction too, and wanted to see how it would go.
"...Not at all. JimJim. Don’t get the wrong idea."
James’s gaze dropped, and Colt was forcing himself to resist the urge to cover his crotch with both hands.
"I’ll be keeping an eye on you this time."
"Why are you acting like this before something good? I’m just hoping the auction goes well."
"It’s weird that Ho-jeong even allowed Colt to take this trip. What did you say to get her to agree?"
James could not understand why Ho-jeong, who already worried about Colt’s womanizing, would allow him to travel overseas.
"Ah... that was..."
Colt had once again used James as his excuse to get approval to attend the international auction. He had argued that he needed to stay close to James so they could keep sharing investment opportunities in the future. Of course, he had never shared any real opportunities with James at all; he had only split the money he stole with him.
"We were in the U.S. from the start... ah, maybe I shouldn’t be telling this here."
Colt could not bring himself to keep talking because Jake, who had come over with them from Sotheby’s, was there too. If he started explaining, he would have to begin all the way back with how they had robbed the casino in Las Vegas.
"Colt. Let’s talk about it separately later."
Jake, who had gone through immigration ahead of them, was hurrying the two along.
"Hurry over here."
"Coming, Jake."
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
A few days after James left the country, the chief secretary entered the TY Telecom president’s office.
"What is it?"
"Sir. This information came in from Immigration."
The documents the chief secretary laid down said that James Kane had left the country. They had stopped close surveillance long ago, but they were still checking his departure status.
"He left three days ago, and his destination is..."
"Is now really the time for you to worry about that bastard?"
The secretary had only meant to spare the president one more headache, but now he wondered if he had brought the report up for nothing.
"......"
"Forget about the bastard who doesn’t know anything. You won’t be seeing him again."
He had been thinking of dealing with things in America, but right now the company’s problems came first.
"Yes, sir."
Whether they would meet again or not had nothing to do with what either side thought. It would depend entirely on James’s choice.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Only after the flight was over and they had reached the hotel did Colt explain why Ho-jeong had allowed him to leave the country. With Jake kept at a distance, the two of them sat in a corner of the hotel lounge bar and talked over drinks.
Glug.
James lifted his glass, inhaled the aroma, and asked, "You said I shared investments with you?"
"If not that, then how else could I explain the money I’m spending? I couldn’t exactly say I had a pile of cash because we robbed a casino."
James thought of the huge sum he had recently made through the TY Telecom short and said, "Hmph. If you’d told me a little earlier, we might have been able to share a real investment opportunity."
"What? Where did you invest? Where was it?"
"No, never mind. If Colt had known, you wouldn’t have had the money to invest anyway."
"What do you mean, I don’t have money..."
This auction would give him funds he could use openly, but the $27 million James currently kept in his inventory was still money he had to hide.
"...You’re right, I don’t."
"I had some cash recently from selling the Texas land. I invested that."
James emptied his glass alone, thinking of the result his successful investment had produced.
"Ha."
Thanks to that, I feel a lot more comfortable now.
"Don’t mention that to Su-ji. Ho-jeong might hear about it."
If Ho-jeong heard it from Su-ji, James suspected he would get an earful about why they had not invested together.
"I haven’t told Su-ji that much yet. I just said I’d lined up some money..."
"So how much did you put in?"
Glug.
The bartender refilled James’s glass.
"Everything I got from selling the Texas land."
"Y-you put in all of it? You invested in something stable, right?"
Then James brought the glass back to his nose again and swirled it, savoring the deep oak scent.
"Hm. Nice. Do I look like someone who wastes money carelessly?"
"No. James never wastes money."
As far as Colt remembered, James did not spend money recklessly. He was not the kind of spendthrift who threw cash around the way Colt did. But the next thing James said made wasteful spending look like the lesser problem.
"Heh. I invested everything in the riskiest product possible, the kind that could wipe out the whole principal. My fund manager even tried to talk me out of it."
"!!"
Click.
Colt set down the glass he had been holding without drinking from it. Then he folded his hands and said seriously, "JimJim. You should pull out now..."
"Haha. It’s fine, Colt."
James ignored him and made to empty the glass in his hand, but Colt lifted a hand to stop him.
"Jimmy. I’m being serious right now. Even if our money is separate..."
His own cash amounted to only $20 million, but what James had was more than $30 million. Even if he lost everything he had invested, it would not be a problem. But setting aside the chance to identify a legitimate source of funds, then losing that money again, was a different matter.
"That money was the one you were thinking of using to buy a house someday."
"Heh. You think I won’t be able to buy a house?"
"Of course we can raise funds again through this auction, but I still think investments need to be made carefully, Jimmy. That goes double even if you end up with more money in the future."
"Heh-heh. I already pulled everything out, so let go now."
"Huh?"
Colt’s hand slipped weakly off James’s arm.
Tap.
"You already pulled it all out? So you weren’t still investing?"
James emptied the small glass again and set it down.
"Heh. The glass I’m drinking now is a celebratory one. The investment was that successful."
It had all begun as a declaration of war against his biological father, Choi Jeong-san. Along the way, James had simply added a little short-selling scheme to the mix, since a drop in that company’s share value was all but guaranteed. But once the declaration of war was over, what remained was a mountain of profit and a great deal of enjoyment.
Making money... feels better than I expected.
The money he had made from selling the Texas land, and the money he would later earn through the auction, were both like lottery winnings dropped into his lap by luck rather than the result of effort. The cash that had come from robbing the casino in the first place did not even need mentioning; it had been theft, plain and simple.
But this time, the profit James had made through investing felt different. He had used magic himself and made a deliberate investment decision to earn it. Investment firms that ran short sales also did everything they could to drive a stock’s value down by any means necessary. James had merely brought the stock down in a slightly different, special way.
"......"
He succeeded at an investment so risky he could have lost everything?
Colt knew the basic law of investing: the greater the risk, the greater the return.
"Jimmy. Just how much..."
"If I tell you how much I made, Colt, you won’t be able to sleep for jealousy."
"...Damn it. I really don’t want to hear it. But I do want to know!"
"Heh-heh-heh. That’s why I’m drinking this celebratory glass alone. I knew Colt wouldn’t be able to congratulate me."
"Give me at least a rough number. I’ll hear it and forget it."
"A rough number..."
James had drunk enough by now that he was folding his arms and smiling.
"You can at least give me the approximate percentage return."
"There were fund manager fees and a few other credit fees, and taxes too. Once all that was deducted..."
Gulp.
Colt swallowed for no reason at all, already tense.
"The return was roughly over 500 percent."
"......"
Even at the high end, it was hard to imagine anything breaking 100 percent. But James had just casually put a bizarre 500 percent return into words.
...He invested $30 million and got 500 percent?