Bullpen by the River

Marcus stood on the bridge, watching the water churn below. The Hudson was the color of old bruises tonight, reflecting the city's sickly yellow glow. He should have been at the game — Rachel had scored box seats to the Mets opener through some work connection — but instead he was here, thirty minutes from their apartment, watching debris spiral in the current.

"Bull market," his boss had said that afternoon, leaning too close, smelling of expensive cologne and entitlement. "Marcus, my man, you're young. You've got balls. You're gonna make us all rich." The older man's hand had lingered on Marcus's shoulder, heavy and proprietary. Everyone in the office knew what really happened in the glass-walled conference room after hours. Marcus had let it slide for eighteen months, telling himself it was the price of admission, that every industry had its customs.

But yesterday, while reviewing client portfolios, he'd found it: the pattern. Older clients, mostly single women, being steered into high-fee funds that underperformed every quarter. The "bull" was eating them alive, and Marcus was helping hold them down.

He'd played baseball in college. Relief pitcher. You knew immediately when you'd thrown a bad pitch — the ball's trajectory, the batter's stance, the inevitable crack of the bat. This was worse. This was throwing games on purpose, and getting paid to do it.

Rachel's text lit up his phone again: "Where are you? Something wrong?" He watched the water swallow the light from her message. She'd signed the lease on their first real place yesterday morning. Thirty years fixed. The life they'd planned, freshly inked on paper, while he sat on evidence that could implode his firm and his career simultaneously.

His pitching coach used to say: "You can't control the batter, the umpire, or the weather. You can only control what leaves your hand." Marcus gripped the railing, his knuckles white. The decision sat heavy and terrible in his chest. Tomorrow morning, he could walk into the SEC's offices with everything. Or he could delete the files, marry Rachel in October, and learn to sleep with the bull.

The water kept moving, indifferent and constant. Marcus pulled out his phone, opened the folder named "Backup," and called Rachel. "Hey," he said, watching the current catch a fallen branch and carry it downstream. "I think I need to tell you something."