Page 50 of Love Spell

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At first, Noah thought he was mistaken: he couldn’t be seeing what he thought he was seeing.Was he seeing double?Was he looking in the wrong column?

His heart beat faster and faster, palms sweating as the reality of his screens beckoned, the zeros mounting up before his eyes.

Someone walked past behind Noah’s terminal, talking on a phone.

“Hey!”Noah waved a hand behind his back, not daring to take his eyes off the numbers on his master screen.“Hey, come here.Look at this.”

He didn’t even care that it happened to be Chandler who drifted in.Chandler tended to move his stick-figure frame at an amble.He didn’t bother to end his call.Just a lazy, “Hold on a minute.One of the juniors wants a word.”Then to Noah, “What?”

“Chandler, look.Am I seeing things?Because, if this is doing what I think it’s doing …” Noah finally broke his fixed gaze to look at Chandler as he leaned closer, one hand on the back of Noah’s chair so their heads were at the same level before the screen.

There was a pause in which Noah felt sure he could hear his own heart hammering in his ears.

Chandler blinked.“You bought those contracts?”

“Yes.”

“Oh … shit …” Chandler said so slowly and softly it sounded reverential.Then he murmured into his phone, “I’ll call you back,” and hung up.

* * *

Timo couldn’t get there at once when he started to hear shouting at the far end of the terminals.He had to focus on his open positions, but the noise grew and he itched to find out who’d struck gold today.

It wouldn’t be Ranveer, Haoyu, or Chandler.They were Timo’s current highest earners and no one would crow over them turning in new records.Probably Dave.Dave was unreliable, but quick and profitable when he was on form, and definitely a crower.

Timo should take the whole team out to dinner.Besides, he actually felt good.He’d had a proper night’s sleep without nightmares and he’d been on fire all morning with his own trades.Maybe taking the pressure off Noah with a celebratory Wolf Pack dinner, team bonding and all that, would be just right to keep things gently moving.

As soon as Timo could get his positions closed he’d head down the hall and offer congratulations.Dinner and a gift for the new hero?Depended on the amount.And who it was.Timo wasn’t sure he could bring himself to give Dave a new car even if Dave brought in a million a minute.

“Timo!”Haoyu grabbed Timo’s doorframe.“You’ve got to see what Noah’s done!”He dashed back down the hall.

Noah?

Timo flew out of his spinning desk chair, at the door before he whipped around to close everything, then ran after Haoyu.

Sure enough, a few of the pack were crowded around Noah’s desk, some of the other guys with active trades shouting from their seats, also watching the numbers.

“What’s going on?”Timo ran behind Haoyu.

But he could see it with his own eyes — Noah’s screen showed a list of short-dated derivatives contracts that must have been far out of the money, but now all showed juicy green.The return stood at 10,000%, and continued to tick up.

Timo didn’t particularly care what the underlying was, or what had kicked off their spike — might be a blip, might be a data release, might be a short seller going to war with a company, or might be a whale distorting the patterns as it plied its path, unaware of the small fish in the same waters momentarily scattering, struggling against the sudden currents.This might be a freak thing, or Noah being lucky.Whatever it was, the return was huge for a small risk.

“How did you find the trade?”

“Oh, I tweaked the code for Geri and Freki.I’ve been working to understand the algorithms, and they flagged it to me.And I thought, why not put my money where my mouth is?Well, your money.”

Chandler’s eyebrows jumped — Timo knew he used their algorithms, but Chandler was a contrarian with his own increasingly complex spreadsheets and systems.He’d never dig into the code itself, let alone change it.

“Seems that IT experience pays off again.Well done, great job.That’s what I like to see here — initiative, out-of-the-box thinking, and then taking a calculated risk.”

“I’ll … I’ll just close these positions now.”Noah’s fingers flew over the keyboard.Finally, he sat back in his desk chair, chest rising and falling on fast breaths.“Damn,” he panted, “my hands are shaking.Sorry — I must look like an idiot.I know it’s not much money by your standards, but that’s a first for me.”

Haoyu laughed before walking out.“Wait until you make your first million in a day.”

Noah blew out a breath, shaking his head.

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