The next hour was a master class in desperation. Damon had turned the dining room into a crisis command center. He had three phones laid out on the table, and he was cycling through them frantic to find a lifeline. I sat quietly in the corner, sipping a fresh cup of tea, watching the sweat beat on his forehead. It was actually dripping down his temple, staining the collar of his expensive dress shirt. He looked less like a Wall Street shark and more like a man drowning in shallow water.
He had already called every contact in his rolodex. I listened as he begged former law school classmates, hedge fund managers, and even rival firms for a bridge loan. The answer was always the same. I could hear the rejection in the silence that followed each call.
Finally, he got hold of a senior partner at his own firm. “Arthur, you have to help me,” he pleaded, gripping the phones so hard his knuckles turned white. “It is a hostile takeover. Titanium Ventures, they are moving in for the kill.”
I leaned forward slightly, straining to hear the voice on the other end of the line. It was faint, but distinct. “Damon, are you crazy?” the voice crackled. “Titanium Ventures is not just a firm. They are a ghost. We do not touch them. Nobody knows who runs it. They have no public face, no headquarters, just a web of shell companies and limitless capital. If they bought your debt, it is because they already own you. Do not drag the firm into this. We are cutting ties.”
The line went dead. Damon stared at the phone, his mouth slightly open. “A ghost,” he whispered the word like a curse. He slammed the phone down onto the table with a primal scream of frustration. “Damn it. Who are these people? How can nobody know who they are?”
Britney, who had been pacing nervously by the fireplace, decided this was the moment to interject. “Babe, stop shouting,” she whined, checking her reflection in the mirror. “You are stressing me out. And what about the Porsche? If they take the house, do they take the car, too? Because I already posted it on my story, and it would be so embarrassing if I had to delete it.”
Damon spun around slowly. The look on his face made Britney take a step back. His eyes were bloodshot and wild. “Are you serious right now?” he roared, his voice cracking. “We are about to lose $50 million. We are about to be homeless. And you are worried about your Instagram story.”
“You are useless, Britney. Absolutely useless. All you do is spend money and take pictures of yourself. Do you have any idea how much trouble we are in?”
Brittney gasped, tears instantly welling up in her eyes. “How dare you talk to me like that?” she sobbed. “I am your wife.”
Damon laughed a cruel hollow sound. “You are a liability,” he spat. “Just shut up and let me think.”
He turned back to his phones, shaking his head, muttering to himself about ghosts and shell companies. He was terrifyingly close to the truth. The ghost he was afraid of was sitting 10 ft away, wearing a Target sweater, and drinking Earl Grey tea.
Damon was pacing the floor like a caged tiger, muttering numbers and legal statutes under his breath. But my mother, Pamela, sat perfectly still. Her eyes, however, were darting around the room looking for a target. She needed somewhere to place this sudden catastrophic failure, and she certainly was not going to place it on her golden son-in-law.
Her gaze landed on me. I was sitting in the wing back chair by the window, quietly reading a paperback novel and sipping my tea. The calmness of my demeanor seemed to trigger something primal in her.
“It is you,” she whispered. Her voice was low, but it carried across the room with terrifying clarity.
I lowered my book slowly, marking my page with a finger. “Excuse me, Mom?” I asked.
“It is you,” she repeated louder this time, standing up. “You are the bad omen. You are the black cloud hanging over this family. Ever since you arrived in Aspen, everything has gone wrong. First the weather, then the mood, and now this. You brought this negative energy into our lives.”
She walked over to me, her hands shaking with rage. “You are a jinx, Audrey. You always have been. Even when you were a child, things would break when you were around. Plans would fall apart. And now you sit here drinking tea while your sister future is being destroyed. Do you not have a shred of empathy in your body? Or are you enjoying this?”
I looked at her steadily. It was fascinating to watch the mental gymnastics required to blame a global financial acquisition on a daughter wearing a sweater from Target. I took a deliberate sip of my Earl Gray, letting the Bergamont settle on my tongue before answering.
“I failed to see how my presence caused a global investment firm to acquire a distressed asset portfolio. Mom, that seems like a matter of poor financial leverage and bad management, not bad vibes.”
Pamela face turned a shade of purple I had never seen before. She snatched the book from my hands and threw it across the room. It hit the wall with a dull thud, damaging the spine.
“Stop talking about things you do not understand,” she shrieked. “You are poison, Audrey. You infect everything you touch. You are the reason your father died early because you stressed him out with your failures. And now you are the reason we are losing this house.”
The accusation about my father was a low blow, even for her. But I did not flinch. I did not give her the satisfaction of a tear. I simply stood up, brushing an imaginary speck of dust from my pants.
“If my presence is so destructive, I will remove myself to the library,” I said calmly. “I would hate for my negative energy to interfere with your bankruptcy proceedings.”
I walked past Damon, who was too busy weeping into his hands to notice me. I climbed the stairs, listening to my mother screaming at the empty air. She called me a jinx. She called me a curse. She was wrong. I was not a jinx. I was karma. and I was just getting started.
While my mother was busy cursing the universe upstairs, Britney decided it was time for her to save the day. She wiped her tears and pulled a portable ring light out of her designer handbag. She set it up on the mantle above the fireplace, adjusting the brightness until it illuminated her tear stained face perfectly. She believed that her 50,000 followers were a veritable army ready to march into battle for her.
She tapped the record button and her face instantly transformed from genuine misery to a practice performance of vulnerability. “Hey guys,” she whispered into her phone, her voice trembling just the right amount. “I do not usually do this, but my family is going through a really, really hard time right now. We are being targeted by some really bad people who want to take away our legacy.”
“I just started a GoFundMe page to help us fight back. Every little bit helps even just $5. Please swipe up to donate and keep our dream alive.”
