Chapter 49
Caroline
This job was only supposed to be a placeholder. A way to earn some extra cash before my next royalty advance. I’d only been here a few short weeks.
Yet sitting at my table, writing my resignation letter, was one of the hardest things I had ever done.
My TV was on in the background, playing the day’s financial news. They mentioned the Namibian gold mine scandal briefly. Only a few seconds of coverage before they moved on to more important things.
The scandal wasn’t that big of a deal.
But I knew myself. And I knew that I needed to put my foot down over this.
I became a journalist because I believed words could make the world better.
The truth, when laid bare, was the best weapon against greed, corruption, and apathy.
Growing up, I watched people get crushed by systems too powerful to question.
I wanted to be the person who did question them.
Journalism felt like a moral compass disguised as a career.
Every story I had ever chased was, in some way, a fight against silence.
Against the idea that ordinary people didn’t deserve to know what was happening behind closed doors on Wall Street.
I got into this field because I wanted to hold the people in power accountable, to make people look when they’d rather look away.
Maybe it was naive, but I still believed that old adage about sunlight being the best disinfectant.
That one well-researched article could shift the world, even just a fraction of a degree, toward justice.
Now I was working for one of the companies I used to hold accountable. Being asked to lie to the public about a scandal.
I had lost my way.
It was easy to see what had happened, in retrospect. I’d gotten too close to Harrison Blackstone. And Rafael Mercer, although he was just the head of security and had never asked me to lie. I’d allowed myself to be blinded by love, or lust, or whatever it was I had with those two men.
The clack of the keyboard was like a machine gun. I was clear-eyed, now.
Even though I knew what I needed to do, I was terrified of how Harrison would react. And, by proxy, Rafael. At best, it would damage our relationship. At worst, it would destroy it.
That still didn’t stop me.
This was the right thing to do, regardless of the fallout.
Even putting aside my moral reasons, it was also in my own selfish self-interest to resign.
If this scandal really broke open, I could be implicated.
I was in the room when Harrison said they were going to wipe emails and forge communications.
My fake name wouldn’t protect me from the massive spotlight that would shine on Blackstone & Moreau.
These were all the justifications I told myself as I finished my letter.
I read it, then re-read it. Tweaked a few sentences, swapped out a weak adjective for a stronger one. I pasted Harrison’s email in the recipient section, then added Brian and the head of Human Resources.
All I had to do was hit send.
Despite knowing it was the right thing to do, I was tempted to sleep on it. To wait until tomorrow to ensure I wasn’t doing anything rash.
But I was afraid that I would lose my nerve if I waited. I needed to do this now.
I grabbed the mouse, moved the cursor to the send button…
A flash of red on the TV stopped me. “brEAKING NEWS,” spread across the screen in enormous font, followed by a cut to a news anchor sitting behind a desk. I let go of my mouse and grabbed the remote control to turn up the volume.
“…we go live to the press conference. Let’s listen.”
The camera switched to a view of a Manhattan building made of steel and glass. A cluster of reporters stood on the sidewalk, jostling for position. The doors of the building opened, and a man in a flawless three-piece suit walked out.
Harrison!
Harrison Blackstone stopped in front of the reporters, with Rafael standing right behind him. I gawked at the TV as he began to speak.
“There has long been a lack of accountability in the world of finance,” he began.
He wasn’t reading from a script, and seemed to be speaking from the heart.
“Wall Street is allowed to do whatever it wants, because we as a society value the economy more than our souls. I will admit that I’ve been part of the problem in the past.”
The reporters began shouting questions at him. He patted the air, waiting for them to go quiet.
“Profits have always driven the market. A smart woman once wrote that we are a nation built on greed, and the pursuit of wealth. But what’s the point of having money if we lose who we are in the process?
“My investment firm invested in a Namibian gold mining company earlier this year. I’ve been advised by my in-house counsel that I shouldn’t admit any fault, but I will say that we have not lived up to the standard that we should expect from ourselves.
That’s why I’m inviting the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate Blackstone and Moreau’s involvement in this foreign scandal.
We want to give full transparency to you, the public.
And if it turns out we made a mistake, or didn’t do enough due diligence with this investment, we will accept whatever punishment the SEC thinks is fair. ”
I found myself smiling. Harrison was doing the right thing. The ache in my stomach was gone, replaced by something that felt right.
“And to that end,” Harrison added, “I will be stepping down as CEO of Blackstone and Moreau.”