The Last Bull

The market had been **running** for seventeen hours straight when Elena finally pressed her forehead against the cold glass of her thirty-fourth floor office. Below, the city was a grid of amber lights and dying embers.

"You're still here," Marcus said, appearing in her doorway like a ghost from meetings past. He held a tangled **cable** in one hand — some relic of a presentation they'd given three years ago, when they still believed their startup would change everything.

"Just finishing the valuation," she said, not turning around. "The board meets at seven."

Marcus stepped closer. The carpet absorbed his footsteps. "Remember that dinner? That terrible Italian place near the canal?"

Elena closed her eyes. She did remember. She'd ordered **spinach** ravioli that tasted of regret and cheap wine. Marcus had told her he was leaving his wife. He hadn't, of course. He never did. But for three hours, she'd believed him.

"Why are you bringing this up now?"

"Because I'm done," Marcus said quietly. "This morning, I looked at my daughter and realized she's ten years old. I don't know who she is anymore."

Elena turned to face him. He looked older than she remembered. The **bull** market had made them both wealthy, but somehow it had hollowed them out in the process.

"The offer from Oracle came in," she said, changing the subject because she didn't know how to do anything else. "We sell, we walk away with eight figures each."

Marcus stared at her. "Or what? Keep **running** until we collapse?"

She thought about the penthouse she'd bought but never furnished. The gym membership she used twice. The texts from her mother she'd stopped answering.

"I don't know how to stop," she admitted.

Marcus dropped the **cable** on her desk. It made a soft, final sound. "Then learn."

He walked out, and Elena watched the empty doorway for a long time. Then she picked up her phone and scrolled until she found her mother's number. The market could wait until morning.