by Mia Mills
Gavin's eyes widen and he puts his drink down on the tray, "Wait a fucking minute...you're not telling me—"
"—that people think we hired Zoey as our market analyst and she made a mistake that ruined everyone's businesses? That's exactly what I'm saying." Ryder finishes Gavin's sentence.
Gavin is stunned, I guess he didn't expect people to think about it that way, but the more you look back on it, no one on the outside really knew what was happening in our circle. That's the problem when you have such a private group no one else has access to. Everyone's free to make assumptions based on the little bits and pieces that they can get their hands on. And so they end up with a warped answer to everything that suits whatever needs they have.
"This is un-fucking-believable." Gavin's jaw is clenched from anger, he's never liked people gossiping about him, and now that someone important to him is in the crossfire, I'm assuming he's even more pissed off about it.
"But the good thing is...there's an easy way to fix this." I try my best to calm him down.
All three of them look at me and wait for my solution, "We bait them."
"That sounds like a fucking massacre waiting to happen." Ryder seethes from his seat.
"It's the only thing we can do though." Jonah sees the point I'm trying to make, "I mean, they'd rather take down at least one of us than Zoey."
"Is that what they're after?" Gavin has his arms crossed now, maybe to avoid punching the car window.
"I think Wall Street right now is a pack of wolves looking for blood. They want to place the blame on the whole thing on someone vulnerable. And they can't do that to us, so they'll do it to someone close to us who's outside our domain. And that's Zoey. She's part of our circle but outside the tier. That's why she's being hunted down like this. And if we don't get to her in time, she'll most likely be framed as the sole perpetrator for one of the worst days of Wall Street this year." After I say this, I see that Gavin has fully understood what's happening and what we need to do. The other two seem to know as well.
He looks outside, "So all we'll have to do is talk."
I nod, "That's it."
He takes a deep breath and exhales, "Alright. If that's what they want. That's what we'll do."
The limo nears Zoey's building, I can see it on the horizon.
I can only hope that we're not too late.
.
Zoey
Dark clouds roll onto the skies, with a few rumbling claps of thunder and dancing lightning accompanying them. Hopefully, if it does rain, it doesn't rain for too long. I jog the rest of the steps up towards my building and enter the premises.
It's been a long day, I just got back from my client's hotel suite to personally apologize for letting him lose so much money before I was able to stop it. Even though he knows it's not my fault, I guess he needed someone to let his anger out at. I just happened to be there.
Now I'm back at the office, it's still hectic, not as crazy as the first day but it's still noticeably stressful to be at work.
We lost a lot of clients and we're scampering about to keep the ones that managed to survive the mess. It's a good thing that we have more interns that the previous years because if we had any less I'm not sure how we're going to take all the workload by ourselves.
I've already gotten up to my floor and I can already see the door to my office. My body aches for the cushions of my chair to swallow me up. I want to just sink into it for five minutes in peace. Sleep has not been easy to get in the midst of this chaos.
Before I can touch the doorknob, Lily slides in front of me and with a hushed voice, says, "Zoey, wait, I have to warn you about something."
My heart skips a beat, I just got demoted. Is this more bad news?
"What is it?" My eyes look at my office door, my leg muscles scream for comfort.
"I don't know why they're here, but they're in your office." She looks over her shoulder, "It's not just them too. There are other people."
"What? Who would...?" I don't have time to finish my thought because the answer became clear as day the moment I gave it some thinking. Of course, they'd be here. What did I expect?
Inhaling deeply, I open the door and walk in. Voila. I knew it.
The four men are seated comfortably in one of the sofas close to the windows, adjacent to them are the higher-ups and opposite them are people in suits who I recognize to be representatives of some of the clients who jumped ship the past few days. I open my mouth to speak and close it when I realize I have no words to say.
My teal eyes meet with Ryder's grey ones and he offers me a soothing smile before motioning for me to approach them. I look to Lily who is as nervous as me, she nods slightly and I make my way to where the group is.
"Good day, Ms. Foster. I hope that the recent events haven't been too harsh on you." Ryder begins, I note that he's speaking unusually too formal than what I'm used to, "We were waiting for you. Now that you're here, we can begin the meeting."
He gestures for me to take a seat in one of the chairs and I do. I can't help but look puzzled by what's going on. Jonah approaches me with a cup of coffee in his hand and gives it to me, patting my shoulder subtly in the process.
"Wait...what—"
"Just trust us. Don't worry about anything. We've worked this out for the best possible outcome. Just breathe, relax. Calm down." He smiles and gets back to his seat.
Looking back at the group, everyone's eyes are on me, it's like I'm being sunk into the sea with stones tied around my waist. It's only when Ryder clears his throat that everybody turns their heads away from me. The cup of coffee in my hand helps me stop fidgeting, at least for now, while Ryder leads the discussion.
"I understand that the past few weeks have been nothing short of a hassle for everyone here. I apologize for having to take a portion out of your time. It's no joke when I say that I'd hoped to meet you all in better circumstances. But unfortunately, you've managed to drive all four of us out of our dens." He dazzles them with his rare smile, "You're all wondering why we're here, no one actually knows except the four of us. And it seems like a dubious scheme but it's actually really quite simple."
Tension hovers in the air and at the back of my mind, I'm thinking that they have some sort of villainous plan to execute.
"We're here to apologize."
Everyone looks confused, they turn to each other and murmur a few things while shaking their heads.
Ryder continues and everyone falls to a hush, "Before we get to that, we'd like to say that the market collapsing was not at all Ms. Foster's doing. If anything, she probably did Wall Street a favor by pointing out exactly where the loopholes are. Now we can all fill it up and be sturdier than ever." He crosses his legs, "There's no mistaking that it was a terrible week. Many businesses fell to the ground over the course of a few hours. But with destruction comes renovation. Things will be better and bigger. That is if your clients say with this company."
He unbuttons his shirt and pulls out his phone, "In fact, the four of us will show just how much we trust this company by placing a hefty amount of funds into their investments." He presses a few buttons on his phone and then smirks, "There. I've asked my department to secure accounts."
"So have the other three." Ryder nods towards Jonah, Gavin, and Wyatt, they all smile, "We're telling you that if you let your clients out of this company, the wolves outside will shred them. I know for a fact that this company's the best thanks to Ms. Foster's efforts." He maintains eye contact with me.
The representatives look at each other and nod.
One of them speaks up, "It sounds like a solid proposition. I'll inform my client that we're signing back in."
The others sound their approval.
My heart almost drops in shock, with just a few sentences, Ryder has completely changed their minds. His charisma flows out of his body and makes everyone in the room fall into a trance-like state of mind. My eyes dart towards the higher-ups of my firm and they're all smiling contently. A few of
them look my way and give me an approving smile.
A wave of relief washes over my skin and I feel rejuvenated, like my world's clear again.
Exhaling shakily, I realize that my eyes are blurry, I have tears on the brink of falling. When I look up to the four of them, they're all smiling at me. I bite my lower lip and smile back. They're here for me. Even when I tried to push them away, they came back for me.
With all the effort I can muster up, I stop the tears from falling. They made this happen. I'm sure of it. Even though Ryder was the one leading the discussion, his words sounded more like Gavin's because of how formal it was.
Yet there was passion in there somewhere, something that screamed Wyatt. Then there was the complete and utter trust that only Jonah could provide.
All their words voiced out by Ryder. The perfect medium for balancing their emotions.
They all worked for this to happen. All of this for me.
"But back to the first agenda." Ryder calls the attention of everyone again, "We're here to apologize."
Murmurs begin again but die down almost as quickly as Ryder continues, "At some point, we neglected our own duties as CEOs and leaders of our companies. As we all know and feel, watching the market can become a tedious task, so we had hoped for a bit of time to ourselves and regain our own strengths. To recuperate, perchance." He closes his eyes and shakes his head, "But that was enough of a window for the market to fall apart. The four of us are considered as the top key players. Personally, I never really felt the obligations and responsibilities of that title. But seeing how the market dropped instantly after we stepped away from our desks for even a moment has shown me just how big of an effect we have on the whole web of Wall Street."
Gavin looks at everyone with a serious expression, "We apologize because we were at the center of this whole thing. We didn't realize that stepping away and keeping to ourselves would disrupt Wall Street to such an extent. And if only we had tried to understand the consequences of our actions better, this might have never happened."
"I know that apologies won't necessarily get back all the losses, but we're hoping that this will serve as a lesson to all. That the market is ever-changing but also reliant on whoever chooses to step into it." Wyatt adds.
Jonah is the last of the four to speak up, "This whole catastrophe has made our lives a living hell the past few days. But we'll rise again, we'll get our businesses up and running. Who knows, maybe something like this will only make Wall Street better in the long run?" He straightens his body, "I'm sorry anyway. Because I know this hurt everyone, and I know my words mean nothing to those who were grievously affected and had their jobs terminated. But it's all I can give, it's all I can offer."
"Let's wrap things up, shall we?" Ryder gets up from the sofa and raises a glass of bourbon, everyone follows, "Here's to being more connected to the market."
I almost gasp, when I look at him, our eyes lock onto each other. That was from my speech.
Suddenly remembering that day gives me a new kind of energy I didn't know I had. That day, I felt so powerful and confident, like nothing could ever stop my ascension. And I lost that feeling at some point. But after Ryder said that...I can feel it returning. He knew just how bad I felt and just what to say to fix it. My chest is filled with warmth and a solemn feeling wraps itself around me.
I'm back.
Ryder
We clink our champagne glasses together and drink at the same time. Wyatt is the only one to drink it all down. Zoey's glowing more than ever, most especially after what she's been through. The higher-ups at her firm let her have the day off, as a reward for being able to make connections with the four of us and pulling back their clients.
"I can't thank you guys enough for what you did back there. I...I'm so overwhelmed by everything. It feels so unreal that things are slowly going back into place." Zoey looks down at the champagne and I spot a tear drop from her eyes onto her skirt.
"It's what was right. Everyone was going to you for something you had no control over." Jonah rubs her back as he's talking, "It's not like you were out sabotaging Wall Street for your own gain."
Zoey hugs him and thanks him again, then she looks at all of us and opens her arms, "Come on. Let me hug you guys." She laughs a bit.
We all lean in closer for the hug, her perfume drowns out all my senses. If I could, I'd whisk Zoey away and hide her from all the pain in the world. She doesn't deserve it. Zoey works hard for her job and doesn't even complain all that much, not even when she has the right to. If there was anyone in the world who deserves to have more recognition, it's her. She was right back when she made that speech at the award's night. She has the potential to continue winning the award for years to come, as she should. I've never known anyone who had her track record and who didn't do drugs with her workload. Yet Zoey's done it, survived it all.
The only thing Zoey's missing is her own company, and I know for a fact that if she had one, it'd surpass Gavin's.
While I was lost in thought, Wyatt had filled up his glass again and is now raising it.
"Another toast!" He announces, his ears are turning red from chugging down so many drinks, he's been trying to keep his nerves at bay even before the meeting, "To Zoey! And to us too! And to the chauffeur! Hell, we can toast for the entire Wall Street, I don't mind."
We laugh at this, everything seems so merry right now you wouldn't have guessed that things were falling apart just a few hours ago.
Our glasses clink once more and we drink.
"Where are we going?" Zoey looks out the window, outside, the limo passes by building after building. Traffic isn't that bad today.
I take another sip of my drink and look out as well, "It's a surprise."
She looks at me and smiles, "Look at you, back to your "non-smiling-not-so-charismatic" self."
Chuckling, I respond, "That was all an act. If you liked it, I could channel it more. It's called the Gavin impersonation."
They explode into laughter while Gavin looks at me, unamused, "Ha. That was a good one. How long have you been keeping that joke in?"
"Since the first time I met you." I jest.
The others laugh again, this time, it's Jonah who chimes in on the joke with one of his own while making theatrical hand gestures, "My Gavin impersonation is just looking at people with no joy and telling them ‘the market hath fallen'."
This makes everyone burst into laughter, even Gavin can't hold back. Zoey even has tears on the sides of her eyes.
"I've never said anything like that!" Gavin says in between breaths.
"Sure you haven't, but you've said ‘doth' once, that's enough to send us a message." Jonah relaxes in his seat, a hand on his stomach.
"Did he really?!" Zoey's eyes widen at this.
Jonah nods and we all double over in laughter at the thought of Gavin saying it.
"To be fair, I only said it because we were attending a play." He tries to reason, but at this point, anything he says just warrants more laughter from us.
We end up drinking two more glasses before Zoey notices that outside, we're no longer in the bustling city. She watches as more trees appear, her eyes look like they're mimicking the shade of the sky. I can't help but be absorbed into her beauty. She had let her hair unravel over her curves when we got in the limo after the meeting. The ravenous locks kissing her shoulders.
"Wait...seriously, we're out of town. Where are we headed?" Zoey turns to us, curiosity dancing in her eyes.
None of us need to answer anymore, she'll see soon enough. The car passes through a gate and Zoey looks outside again.
"Is this your house?" She looks at me.
I shake my head, "Not just mine."
"What? Is your family here? Is that what this is about?" Her eyes go over the other three, "Do they know about them?"
A chuckle rolls off my tongue, "No. Not my family."
The limo pulls over in front of the mansion after passing through the garden and the tunnel of trees. We g
et out and the limo drives off. Zoey looks at the mansion, taking a few steps back to take it all in. She can see that there's a lot of rooms just from the outside. It's huge and grand with classic white walls and lots of greenery.
"I don't understand why we're here." She turns back to us, her face riddled with confusion.
Gavin, while looking at the mansion, takes a step forward with a smile on his face.
"It's ours." He looks at her, his eyes proud like he's presenting a great award.
"Ours? The four of you bought a house for yourselves? Like a bachelor pad or something?" I feel like Zoey knows, but she doesn't seem to believe yet.
"No, ours as in..." I gesture to her, "...with you. The four of us with you." A smile crawls its way onto my face, "The four of us bought this to live with you."
"What?!" She looks back at the mansion, this time with more excitement from knowing that it's part hers, "Oh my God!" She squeals then turns to hug us all. We envelop her in an embrace.
"Whew, glad that you're not freaking out in a bad way." Wyatt exhales and laughs.
She shakes her head, "Jesus, no way! I wouldn't be ungrateful for this. There's just...I just have no words for this."
I put an arm around her and then face the mansion, "I think it's about time we explored what's waiting inside. Shall we?"
She grins and nods fast, "Yes! Oh my God, yes!"
We make our way to the door and Wyatt holds the doorknob, "Ready?"
Zoey's breathing is noticeably quicker than it was a few minutes ago, it makes my heart skip a beat seeing her like this. She's ethereal.
"Yes. As ready as I'll ever be." She bites her lower lip in excitement.
She has no idea what's waiting in store for her. And I can't wait to see just how much she's going to love everything.
Jonah
The five of us enter the threshold of the mansion, Zoey let out an audible gasp when she laid her eyes on the giant chandelier hovering above the foyer of the mansion. Surrounding it are two giant staircases leading up to the balcony and two guest rooms on each side, both of which have their own bathrooms. Everything is either white or the shade of chestnut to give a more refreshing and clean feeling.