There’s nothing like doing a deal that lands you a few hundred thousand in one go. So I hear.

After starting out with less than nothing Steven had managed to work his way up from the lead generator in his office to becoming the main guy. The closer of closers.

He wasn’t selling anything extraordinary, it was life insurance. But after 18 months Steven consistently earned 30 thousand a month and was doing very nicely for himself.

You’d think that would be enough for anyone.

But Steven was as ambitious as they come, and he was always looking out for an opportunity.

One night at a bar after another stellar month he was spending out the bar, paying for everyone’s drinks as he’d just had his first 50k month and won the team a ski trip to the Swiss alps in January.

While the drinks were flowing he’d gotten talking to some guys who were in the bar’s VIP section and spent even more wildly than him.

They too were sales guys, also doing very well judging by the gold Rolexes and two diamond studded Patek Phillipe watches sparkling beneath the booth lights.

These guys looked slick as hell, and they had an edge. These were not insurance salesmen that’s for sure.

Once they got to talking it turns out that they were London bullion dealers. But they didn’t just sell physical gold. In London something called rehypothecation was legal, meaning you could sell the same asset more than once. So that the asset would back some paper contract that you sold onwards, like a big game of financial musical chairs.

Steven had proudly told them how he was doing in the insurance game, only to be met with mocking sniggers.

‘’You can do better than that mate’’ bellowed the giant, burly blond man with his slick hair and diamond encrusted watch.

‘’I done 480 thousand last month and went and bought a McLaren 720S on my debit card’’ they all laughed in victorious, gloating agreement.

‘’Fuck me, that’s not bad’’ Steve said.

The burly blond man, who seemed to be the leader of this boisterous pack said that if Steve could do 50 thousand a month in insurance then the sky would be the limit doing the gold thing. He’d get his own team and sales floor in no time.

————————————————

Six months later and the bar conversation had turned into a job, which had gone well very quickly and turned into the sales floor so presciently predicted by the burly blond man.

There were a few red flags along the way of course. There were no repeat customers and some of the lunch and dinners featured characters who could have been straight out of a gangster movie. Always burly, serious men with nice watches and half whispered sentences.

Within a year Steven was making between 300 and 800 thousand per month. But he knew very well who the men behind the businesses were.

His financial needs were more than satiated, and he wanted to slow down, or quit. However this wasn’t the type of thing you could just quit when you’re making, or should I say cleaning the amount of money Steven was for these faceless, mysterious people.

——————————————

Steve decided it was time to unofficially wind down the business, and by July he was back to making the amount of money he’d made in insurance.

This had of course meant throwing away a number of easy deals.

On the first Tuesday in August as the sales floor hummed with activity Steve was looking down from his tenth floor window onto the road.

A Rolls Royce pulled up and three very big men got out. The man who got out of the back opened the opposite side door to his and a smaller man emerged.

Something about this little scene alarmed Steve. Even more so when the small man gave a nod to the security, parking his car right outside the building in a loading bay.

He then looked up, as if looking Steven directly in the eye and entering the building with his three goons in tow.

The buzzer buzzed and the receptionist said that Charles Smith, or Charlie Jr as he was known was here.

‘’Fuck!’’

A personal visit from the heir to one of the country’s most notorious criminal families, and the invisible men behind the gold scam.

Charlie walked straight into the office and punched Steven in the face, right in front of the traders and admin girls on his floor.

Never a good thing for 50+ employees to see their boss get punched in the face but of course there was absolutely nothing he could do. This man and his family practically owned the police force if you ever thought of reporting him for a crime. You’d also get a visit from some very big, very unsentimental men in leather gloves.

Steven took Charlie into an office and his assistant Angela came in to take any drinks orders.

‘’What’s been going on these last few months buddy?’’ Charlie asked, flanked by his three huge bodyguards.

‘’Charlie, I....’’

Charlie shouted over Steve, stopping him.

‘’You what!? You fucking what? Decided to stop doing your job after a few good months. Decided that because you’d made a bit of money that was it? That’s not it until we say that’s it. If you are a good earner and you are earning, you keep earning my friend!’’

Steve’s phone rang, it was his girlfriend Heather. He looked at the screen intending to ignore the call.

‘’Pick it up’’ Charlie ordered.

Heather was crying hysterically and the baby was also crying in the background.

‘’Steven what’s going on?’’ she sobbed sounding terrified. ‘’Why are there men at the house making threats’’

Steve looked at Charlie ‘Fuck!’

‘Fuck indeed.’