He Married His Hometown Neighbor, Then Begged for a Second Chance novel · Chapter 20 of 40

Chapter 20: The Fall and the Rise

Evan called Ethan from the stairwell of the Shieldon building, with the fire door shut behind him.

He had run down eleven flights to be somewhere nobody could hear.

Ethan answered on the first ring.

"Evan."

"I'm looking at the number," Evan said.

"I can explain."

"You don't have to. I've been reading filings since ten-oh-two." His voice stayed level, and it frightened him how level. "Stay by your phone. I'll tell you when I'm done."

He hung up.

His hand was shaking.

He put it against the cold concrete wall and waited for it to stop.

Then he went back up and told the floor what was happening.

He told them in the lab, in front of fourteen people with their coats half on.

"Ross Group is shorting us," he said. "They're also choking our server deliveries. It will be loud for a day. After that it will be nothing, if we ship."

"Ship what?" said the tall engineer.

"Resolve Plus, on the schedule we wrote for next quarter. Today."

"It isn't done."

"It's done enough for anyone who watched the Expo."

He turned to the wall of phones.

By noon every one of the team had called a client.

By two there were nineteen orders, and a bank he had never heard of asking for the contract in a fortnight.

At three, a fund from the north sent an offer for twelve percent of Shieldon.

Every Red took it in the corner office, on speaker, with her arms folded.

"They want me to name my price," she said, "and I won't. Not today. Today I'll let them name theirs." She looked at him sidelong. "Do you know how long I've waited for Ethan Ross to do something that stupid?"

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