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She set the tray down on the table, and her eyes met mine as she offered a polite, yet slightly flirtatious smile.

"Jasmine, this is Jack Somnus, he was sent by the main branch," Philippe said, clearing his throat and gesturing between us. "Jack, this is Jasmine—one of our new hires here."

Jasmine took my hand with a firm grip. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Somnus. I've heard quite a bit about you."

"All good things, I hope."

"Of course," she said with a hint of amusement in her voice.

After Jasmine left the conference room, I turned back to Philippe. "You haven't even hired any traders yet, but you're already bringing in beauties to deliver you pastries?" I said, with genuine concern for this man's integrity.

Philippe flushed slightly, clearly caught off guard. "Actually, Jasmine has a master's in accounting," he defended quickly. "She's been invaluable—handling the purchase of the office, setting up the accounts, and preparing the balance sheets. Without her, we wouldn't be able to report anything to the main branch efficiently."

I raised my eyebrow. "If she's doing all of that, then what are you doing here, Philippe?"

"Well," he stammered, "she didn't do all that alone. She was helping me with the setup and managing the finances. We worked together on everything."

I leaned back in my chair, studying him for a moment. "If she was helping with all of that, it would be wrong for her not to attend this meeting. I want you to go and get her, Philippe. We'll start once she's back."

Philippe looked a little nervous, but he nodded quickly. "Alright, I'll bring her in," he said, before disappearing out of the room.

A moment later, the door opened again, and Philippe re-entered the room, Jasmine by his side.

"Jasmine," I said, gesturing for her to take a seat at the table. "Philippe told me that you have been very involved in everything that has been done so far. I think it's important for you to be a part of this meeting."

She glanced at Philippe, then back at me, before giving a small nod. "Of course, Mr. Somnus."

"Good," I replied, folding my hands on the table. "Let's go over everything together. I want to hear from both of you."

Philippe started his presentation. He spoke about the branch's operations, the local market, the European market as a whole, and the opportunities he saw for expansion.

What I was really starting to pick up on was that Jasmine was actively adding to and clarifying what Philippe had said, which made it clear she had a better understanding of the financials and the presentation on hand than Philippe.

I found this really strange.

I raised my hand, interrupting Philippe. "Actually, Philippe, I have a few questions about the financial projections. Specifically, I'm interested in the assumptions you made for the European market growth rate."

Philippe looked slightly flustered, glancing at Jasmine for support. Jasmine, however, seemed perfectly at ease.

"Mr. Somnus," Jasmine said, her voice calm, "the growth rate assumptions are based on..."

"Alright, stop! This is enough." I raised my hand. "Philippe, this was just a simple question that you could answer with some random, made-up statistics given by the governments of economic organizations."

Philippe shifted uncomfortably. "Jasmine did a lot of the behind-the-scenes work. I mainly focused on the broader strategic aspects."

"Alright, I think I will end this meeting here. Jasmine, I will need some documents so I can finish some formalities at the CFE. I hope you can help me with that."

"Of course, Mr. Somnus. I'll make sure you have everything you need." Jasmine answered professionally.

We left the conference room and I was at the reception desk with Jasmine, waiting for her to find the documents.

"Jasmine, could I have your phone number?"

Jasmine's eyes widened in surprise.

"It's not what you think—I will need to talk with you about what's going on here, because I'm not liking it."

She hesitated for a moment, then gave a small smile. "Sure, Mr. Somnus."

She scribbled her number on a piece of paper and handed it to me. "Feel free to reach out anytime."

"Thanks, Jasmine," I said, taking the paper. "I'll be in touch soon."

I went to the Centre de Formalités des Entreprises with the documents and I thought that I could take care of everything quickly; however, once I got there, I quickly realized that my French wasn't up to the task.

The staff at the CFE struggled with English, so I ended up contacting Jasmine right then and there.

I paid her a good bonus to help me with everything.

Charlotte texted me a few times along the way, wondering why I was taking this long.

I walked back to the hotel with all the paperwork finally sorted.

RING!RING!RING!

My phone rang.

I picked up.

"Hello, Jack. This is John Curtis from Charles Schwab; I hope you're well."

"Hi, John. Why are you calling me? What's going on?"

I have a bad feeling about this... especially because of that article this morning.

"So... we might have a bit of a problem with your account," John said. "There was a transaction involving the sale of 1,000,000 futures contracts of Axon Enterprise. Did you authorize this transaction?"

I paused on the sidewalk. "John, I haven't looked at my brokerage account for more than a day now. Let alone make a transaction like this one..."

"Please, do not worry, sir. we have everything under control. But I should let you know that the transaction was attempted from a Russian IP address. Our security systems detected and blocked the attempt. We suspect that your account was targeted by a cyberattack."