London, 2015. Summer
Canary Wharf. 3:06 p.m.
Julian Watanabe stared at the screen for three seconds.
Then exhaled a sharp breath, half laugh, half pressure release.
Not cynical. Not bitter.
Just… amused.
Like someone who finally solved the trick behind a magic show,
and realized the magician was an idiot.
"Your access has been revoked. Please contact risk compliance."
The Bloomberg screen went dark.
He finally lay still.
The trading floor was dead quiet.
Only keystrokes, shallow breaths, and the weight of a funeral no one named.
Julian sat motionless, one hand still on the keyboard,
He recalled his last words to the head of Risk.
"You're afraid of a blow-up.
I'm afraid of missing the move."
She didn't reply.
Just circled the number.
Red. -17.2%.
Julian rose.
Not angry. Not ashamed..
Took his coat. Left everything else.
Hermès bottle. Montblanc pen. Valeant report. All untouched.
No one followed.
An intern started to stand, then sat down fast.
A voice from Risk murmured through the phone,
"Once he's out, halve the exposure."
Julian heard it. Didn't turn.
"You're not cutting me."
"You're cutting the part that made you money."
He passed the glass corridor like a ghost in a Tom Ford suit.
Fingertips cold.
Eyes lit with the shape of a flash crash.
That wasn't his first exile.
Six years ago, he had no name.
Just a mixed-race junior from LSE printing trade reports in Ops Support.
But before that,
In 2006, he joined Lehman Brothers straight out of university.
First job. First ID badge.
He lasted two years.
When the firm collapsed in 2008, he walked out carrying a cardboard box, like everyone else.
He didn't talk about it.
After that, he landed at another London firm, Pubclays.
Bigger, colder. The kind with too many floors and too few mentors.
It was there quietly, invisibly, that he earned Tier 2 access.
He learned to trade alone.
Years later, Tokyo firm Noruma Securities made him an offer.
More pay. More freedom.
It felt like a promotion.
He didn't know it would be the end.
Spring.
Clock in at 6:30 a.m.
Clock out past 11.
Invisible.
His suit? Marks & Spencer. Polyester blend. Navy pinstripe.
He hated it.
But he knew armor didn't come in silk when you had no pedigree.
Shirt: TM Lewin, three for £20.
Shoes: Loake Oxfords. Cracked at the heel.
Polished religiously three coats of Cherry Blossom every Friday.
No one watched. He still did it.
Because he wanted to be mistaken for a trader.
Even if he was just another cog in the back office hell.
Each morning:
Drip coffee. Yirgacheffe. Medium-light.
No Nespresso. No budget blends.
Because real traders didn't sip cost-cut caffeine even if he wasn't one yet.
He worked under white fluorescents that made his skin look tanned.
Paper smelled of rot, expired models, damp ink, and static from jammed printers.
Lunch? Never Pret.
He crossed the street to a French deli, ordered ham with wholegrain mustard.
No meal deals. Ever.
"If you eat like background, you'll stay background."
Evenings?
He rode home to a cracked attic in Ealing.
Pigeons landed like clockwork.
He bought IKEA curtains with his first bonus of £200.
Closing them felt like shutting the world out.
Toothbrush: Swiss-made.
Nightcap: Glenfiddich with one drop of mineral water.
To calm his nerves like a low-beta asset.
He'd lie flat on a mattress thinner than a Bloomberg keyboard and whisper:
"One day, I won't print these fucking reports."
"One day, I'll only print my name."
What no one knew:
He had found a backdoor.
An abandoned demo account buried deep in the network.
And he traded.
Forty-seven days.
Forty-six wins.
One draw.
Zero losses.
The 47th trade? Gold ETF.
Not a flashy derivative. Not a stock story.
Just volatility mispriced after a delayed FOMC model update.
+3.4%.
Silent kill.
No sugar in the coffee. No one saw. No one asked.
Support staff joked about clubs.
Printers jammed.
A chart blinked red and reset.
Julian spun a conference pen in his fingers.
"Volatility is Opportunity."
The email arrived at 3:06 p.m.
He remembered the time.
The S&P looked like a dying heart monitor.
Subject: Internal Access Privilege Adjustment
Your sandbox has been upgraded to Tier 2.
Controlled beta access on synthetic baskets granted.
Do not disclose to other personnel.
Risk & Compliance
We are always watching.
No handshake. No pat on the back.
Just access.
Julian smiled.
Not from joy.
He had read the next line of a script he'd memorized by heart.
He slapped a Post-it on his screen:
Julian Watanabe
Tier 2 Access
Synthetic Exposure ACTIVE
That night, he didn't go home.
He bought a 2004 Amarone for £120.
Drank it alone on a rooftop. Watched the sun rise over empty streets.
Now?
He no longer needed Pret sandwiches.
He constructed structured products across three monitors.
Until today.
Everything went dark.
Back to 2015
In the elevator, he stood alone.
P&L: -17.2%
Access: Revoked
Commission: Frozen
Future: Undetermined
He didn't cry.
Didn't clench.
Just stared at his reflection.
Silver suit.
Messy hair.
Eyes still untamed.
Then he whispered,
"It wasn't the market.
It was the leverage."
He didn't return home.
He walked to the only bar across from Canary Wharf Station that never changed.
The Black Ledger.
A bar named like a sin you can't confess.
No interns.
No VCs.
No LinkedIn glory hunters.
Only one kind of man—
The fallen.
Coders. Credit rats. Bond monks. IRR priests.
Each wearing a trench coat over past employers' tees.
The air was a cocktail of whisky, loss, and denial.
Julian stepped to the counter.
"Negroni. No stir. No garnish."
The bartender, a heavy Scotsman in plaid, nodded.
"Knew you'd show up eventually, Mr. Watanabe."
Julian said nothing.
Drained the drink in one go.
He didn't take the window seat.
That was for comeback stories.
He chose the corner.
Back to concrete.
One foot already out of the system.
His hand still trembled.
Valeant ticker flashed across the bar TV.
Everyone knew it crashed.
No one here cared anymore.
Too much blood. Too much memory.
Too much lost brilliance pretending not to feel.
Julian glanced at the Goldman guy passed out on the bar.
Thought:
"Maybe one day I'll drink myself to sleep, too.
Open a barber shop."
But not tonight.
He walked out into the London night.
Behind him: collapsed charts.
Ahead: a blood-red Negroni.
He wasn't done.
And the market still owed him a climax.
Glossary: What the Fuck Just Happened in That Chapter?
Tier 2 Access
An internal trading permission level. Only the chosen few get to touch core products. It's not a promotion, it's a system selection.
Synthetic Exposure
Not buying a stock, but building an identical price movement around legal loopholes. Basically: cosplay a position without the paperwork.
Structured Products
Financial candies wrapped in math and lies. Built by bankers, fed to clients. You sell it, but never eat it yourself.
Risk & Compliance
The hybrid child of angel investors and counterterrorism units. If they say you're mad, you're mad. If they say you're done, you're done.
Blow-up
Systemic destruction. Usually kills the person before the account. A proper financial funeral.
Flash Crash
A drunk fell down a staircase, but for markets. Blink and your net worth is gone.
P&L
Profit & Loss. The one true god of all finance folk. Red numbers = purgatory.
Bloomberg Terminal
The seance machine for traders. Costs more than your salary, looks like Windows 95, and is worshipped like scripture.
Meal Deal
A British supermarket lunch combo. Shame, priced at £2. Only consumed by the tragically budget-conscious.
Back Office
The department where work happens, but glory doesn't.
You do the tasks, and someone else signs the report. You're basically feeding data into other people's promotions.
Ops Support
Operations support the trader behind the trader.
You do the job, he gets the bonus. A natural order of suffering.
FOMC
Federal Open Market Committee.
Every meeting decides the fate of global wage slaves.
Julian watches it more closely than he ever watched his own relationships.
Volatility
The fever chart of the market's epilepsy.
Julian treats it like an old friend — unpredictable, but honest.
Beta
Risk coefficient.
The more you act like the system, the lower your beta.
Act like a maniac, and your beta hits the ceiling.
Gold ETF
A gold exchange‑traded fund.
S&P
The Standard & Poor's Index, America's cardiac monitor.
Julian tracks it because he doesn't trust doctors.
Sandbox
A "practice account" where trades aren't real unless you're Julian.
The system thinks he's testing. He's actually writing scripture.
Post‑it Note Flex
The fine art of writing your elite access on a 50‑pence sticky note.
Motivation for yourself. Intimidation of others.
Commission: Frozen
When your commission is "temporarily suspended."
That means you've already been fired; the system just hasn't told you yet.
No interns.
No fresh starts here.
If you're still polishing your resume,
you haven't lost hard enough.
No VCs.
No pitch decks. No founding myths.
This isn't where the story begins.
Nobody's handing out $5 million for a slick PowerPoint.
Coders
Tech infantry.
Once wrote hedge logic.
Now they code their rent spreadsheets.
Credit Rats
Debt scavengers.
Used to carve junk bonds into gourmet platters.
Now all they hold is tax slips and cheap scotch.
Bond Monks
Fixed-income ascetics.
Once whispered, duration and spread in sacred silence.
Now they pray to Moody's in half-empty pubs.
IRR Priests
Internal Rate of Return evangelists.
Chant "22% carry" like it's gospel.
They no longer seek alpha only absolution.