Chapter 2

“I don’t have any money.”

I thought I had misheard her.

For a moment, I even wondered if several sleepless nights had made me hallucinate.

“Mom, what did you say? The $800,000 I earned over the past three years is all with you—”

Beep. Beep. Beep.

She hung up.

I stared blankly for two seconds before calling her again.

This time, an automated message said the phone was switched off.

I stared at the black screen of my phone while the last echoes of the fire alarms from the nearby business park faded away.

My mind went completely blank.

The $800,000 was all gone?

I stared at the black screen for three seconds.

Then I pressed redial.

The automated message informed me that the number I had dialed was switched off.

The mechanical female voice came through the receiver.

Once.

Twice.

I called five times in total, but the same message played every time.

My mother had actually hung up on the phone call that could save my life, then switched off her phone.

That was impossible.

She kept $800,000 of my hard-earned money for three years.

How could she not even come up with the $60,000 I urgently needed?

Maybe she had been half-asleep and failed to understand what I was saying.

With a final glimmer of hope, I called my father, Robert Watson.

The phone rang nearly ten times before he answered.

My father’s voice was thick with sleep.

“Larry? Why are you calling at this hour?”

“Dad, there was a fire at my warehouse. It destroyed $60,000 worth of a customer’s goods. They said they’ll send me to prison if I don’t pay within three days.”

My throat tightened, and my voice shook so badly that my words were almost unintelligible.

“Mom says she doesn’t have any money. Can you persuade her to transfer some to me so I can get out of this crisis?”

There was silence on the other end for several seconds.

I heard my father’s slippers slap against the floor as he walked away.

He went to my mother’s bedroom and called out softly twice.

My mother’s sleepy voice came through the phone.

“What the hell are you doing in the middle of the night?”

Then she slammed the bedroom door shut.

Nearly two minutes passed before my father spoke again.

He sounded unmistakably guilty.

“Larry, your mother says… she really doesn’t have any money.”

My fingers tightened around the phone until my knuckles cracked.

“Dad, that’s $800,000! The $800,000 I worked day and night to earn over the past three years is all with her!”

“Your mother says we can talk about it when you come home. She doesn’t want to discuss it right now.

“I still have the card she uses to give me my allowance. She sends me $200 every month.

“I checked the balance. I’ve only managed to save $560 so far. Should I transfer it to you?”

Five hundred and sixty dollars.

It was not even enough to cover a fraction of what I owed the customer.

“Dad, tell me. Where did that $800,000 go?”

“I… I wouldn’t dare interfere in your mother’s affairs. She never lets me touch her money. Can we talk about it when you come home?”

I hung up before he could finish.

The customer gave me only three days.

If I failed to come up with $60,000 within that time, I would not only face a lawsuit and prison.

All seven of my e-commerce businesses, which I spent three years building, would be shut down.

The eight employees who worked for me for two years would also lose their jobs.

All the effort I poured into my business over the years would go to waste.

I gritted my teeth, crouched on the steps, and opened my contacts. Then I called my business partners one by one.

I called Joshua first. His factory had supplied me for two years.

Just last month, he clapped me on the shoulder over drinks and said we were as close as brothers.

“Josh, there was a fire at my warehouse, and I urgently need money. Can you pay me $40,000 of the amount you owe me first?”

“Oh, Larry, you know how sharply PVC raw material prices have risen lately. I can barely afford my workers’ wages. I really don’t have anything to spare.”

The call ended with a click. He did not even bother with a polite excuse.

I called Lisa, one of my distributors.

She had just picked up $100,000 worth of beauty products from me the previous month and promised to settle the payment within a week of selling them.

“Lisa, I’m urgently short of $60,000 for working capital. Can you pay me part of what you owe first?”

“Larry, I just sent a shipment to an overseas warehouse. I don’t have a cent of cash on hand. I’m really sorry.”

She hung up on me too.

I made more than a dozen calls in a row.

Martin, the freight forwarder I helped financially in the past, hung up as soon as he heard me ask for a loan.

The fellow merchants I usually got along with either claimed they were broke or refused to answer my calls.