Chapter 1: The Last TradeThe rain fell in thick, dismal sheets against the glass panels of George Cooper Jr.'s high-rise New York apartment, each droplet echoing like a countdown. He leaned over the mahogany desk, eyes flickering between glowing monitors and tumbling numbers. Stocks were falling. Commodities were crashing. Panic was blooming across the financial district like a fungus.
But George was calm.
His fingers moved quickly, punching in final trades. His custom-built algorithm—a culmination of ten years of market pattern research—had already predicted the collapse of the junk bond bubble. It wasn't a question of "if." It was already happening.
He had shorted the market one last time. Then he closed the terminal.
That was the last trade of his life.
Outside, lightning cracked. George stood up to pour himself a glass of bourbon—his usual ritual—but as he took the first sip, something felt off. His vision blurred. His heartbeat stuttered.
Then: darkness.
His last thought before everything went black wasn't fear. It wasn't regret. It was calculation.
"Did I hedge enough into gold?" he mused.
He never got the answer.