Lightning in the Bull Market

The storm was fucking spectacular, actually. I stood on my twentieth-floor balcony, nursing a scotch that cost more than my first car, watching lightning rip through the charcoal sky over Manhattan. Each flash illuminated the grid of apartments like some cosmic strobe light, and I counted the seconds between flash and thunder. Three seconds. Maybe four.

My iPhone buzzed against the glass table inside—Sarah, again. Probably asking where I was, or maybe she'd finally noticed the corporate card charges for the jewelry that wasn't for her. I let it buzz.

"You're going to miss it," Miller said, stepping out beside me. He held his own phone like a weapon, eyes glued to the Bloomberg terminal. "Market opens in ten minutes. We've been building this position for six months."

Six months of my life. Six months of midnight calls, weekend research, meetings that bled into dinners that bled into nights I couldn't remember. Six months since I'd seen my daughter awake.

"It's bull," I said, but the word caught in my throat.

"What?"

"The whole thing. The data's cooked. I found it three weeks ago."

Miller's expression didn't change. He'd been at the firm thirty years. Nothing surprised him anymore.

"And you're just telling me now?"

"I was hoping I was wrong."

Another lightning strike, closer this time. The thunder shook the floor beneath our feet.

"We're not the good guys," I said, finally. "We're just the guys who haven't got caught yet."

The market opened somewhere beyond the glass. Numbers scrolled across Miller's phone, green and red and meaningless. My iPhone buzzed again—Sarah, then a text from my daughter asking if I was coming to her recital tomorrow.

"So what do we do?" Miller asked, and I realized he wasn't asking about the trade. He was asking about something much bigger.

I watched the lightning fork across the sky, bright enough to burn spots into my vision. For a moment, everything was illuminated.

"We tell the truth," I said. "For once."

Miller nodded slowly. He turned off his phone.

"Yeah," he said. "About fucking time."