Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 81488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 272(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 272(@300wpm)
“Pierre Neilson will already be in attendance. He can pick up the slack. Just let him know in advance that I won’t be present, but he and I can meet later in the day to debrief.”
“I certainly will. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“Yes, in fact there is. Hold all of my calls and appointments for the next two hours. No one is to get through unless it’s my wife, or an emergency.”
“I will make sure of it.”
“Thank you.” He quickly ended the call.
The music played and played, and Eric did nothing more but glare at him, creating an unpleasant silence. His ominous scowl certainly summed up his mood, filling the room like hot lava bumbling from an erupting volcano that had slumbered a few thousand lifetimes. A war of emotions raged within Roman as the two men went from jovial banter earlier that morning, to this. Sharp, murky panic swept through him as flashes of the life he’d worked so hard to build cracked and snapped at the seams beneath the weight of his grandfather’s power.
Boundless difficult college courses, killer exams, constantly having to prove himself worthy in spite of not coming from an academic family or an honorable household. He worked endlessly, painting a smile on his face for an internship that about broke him in half—being constantly sent off to fetch lunches and coffee for fun by insecure men who wanted to put him in his place, or shame him for growing up without the finer things in life. He was disrespected often and had to bite his tongue and tuck his fist, no matter how tempting to stoop to an adversary’s level and rip them to shreds.
This is the part where I am told to resign. It’s articulated that Goldman Sachs’ attorney will be in contact with me, in what? Five seconds? This is the part where HR has an emergency meeting and people are whispering, trying to figure out what the hell is going on as meeting after meeting gets canceled to address what I’ve done, and where I’m going. This is the part I knew was coming, but I have to do the right thing, in spite of it. I have to tell the truth.
Greed is holding onto a façade of myself. Squandering an opportunity to deliver the truth, all to protect a false image of myself when the real me is good enough. Fucked up, flawed, black sheep and all. Greed is taking the whole damn company down with me, simply because my back is against the wall. Greed would be selling my property, my cars, withdrawing my money, grabbing Genesis and runnin’ away to some undisclosed, out-of-the-way location where she’d live an opulent life, but never be able to see her family again—all on account of me. No… the greed stops here. I’m not like him. I’ve got to take my power back. Confess my sins and stand here and take the thunder and the lightning. Like the tree…
The boss took a sharp breath.
“Roman, I am going to ask you to throw away your fucking bullshit artistry, that conman charisma that you throw around like confetti and be real with me! Man to fucking man! Tell me the gotdamn truth!” Eric slammed his fist against his desk. “Don’t try to mind fuck me like you do so many others. I have seen you at work. You’ve mind fucked so many people that it’s a surprise that their brains didn’t start popping out babies! I know what you’re capable of. You make atheists wanna suddenly be a nun or join the priesthood. You’ve got the heart of a top salesman, the brain of a mathematician, and the looks of a runway model, and like me, you’re a damn veteran. You use these attributes to gain control over others. Today, right now, it stops. No bullshit!” The man waved his hands frantically about.
“Got it. No bullshit.”
“I need to wrap my hands around this. In order to do that, I have to know the extent of what I’m dealing with. I want you tell me exactly what the hell you did that has your own grandfather believing is so valuable, that I would fire your ass, and you’d end up dishonored and in a world of hurt and trouble. Get straight to the motherfucking point like an arrow. Three…two…one… Go!”
“You got it,” He raised his hands in surrender. “Eric, in a time of desperation, I concocted a plan to bamboozle a prominent Vegas casino out of millions of dollars. I didn’t steal it, per se, but I did engage in nefarious and unscrupulous practices in order to obtain the winnings.”
“That’s a fancy fuckin’ way of you saying you did some flimflam shit, like switching card decks, finger work, countin’ cards or something, to the tune of a million-dollar windfall.”