Scarlett nervously looked over at the TV screen that was playing some old black-and-white movie she didn't recognize.
"[The Last Picture Show]," Evan said as a way of explanation. "I like seeing old classic movies to incorporate them in stuff that I shoot. You can learn a lot from the classics."
Scarlett hummed noncommittally before glancing toward the other end of the room, where Troy's mother, Kathy, was pacing incessantly.
"Should we…" Scarlett hesitated. "Talk to her about it?"
Evan shook his head. "It's futile. She won't stop worrying until this whole situation is well beyond us. That's why Troy and Steve didn't ask her to accompany them to the meeting with the FBI, because they know how she is when it comes to matters regarding Troy."
"Why didn't you go in for the meeting then?" Scarlett asked curiously.
Evan shrugged. "Didn't want to make it seem sexist, I guess."
Scarlett laughed at that before sobering up quickly. "Do you think this will get worse than it already is? Because the media is not portraying Troy in a positive light."
Evan waved off her concerns. "It'll be alright. It always is with Troy. He has this unique talent to sway the media back to him as soon as he opens his mouth. He'll probably give an interview, and then everything will go back to normal in a day or two. I believe him when he says that he didn't do anything wrong."
Scarlett nodded slowly, taking it all in, before finally broaching the topic she'd wanted to all along.
"Listen, about what you saw when you guys came in…"
"I didn't see anything," Evan corrected her immediately. "I just heard the sounds the two of you were making, but don't worry about it too much. Our family is very open-minded. No one would judge you as long as you keep Troy happy."
Scarlett didn't believe him at all. If she caught one of her siblings in such a situation, she would absolutely judge them.
"Right," she said slowly before getting up from her seat. "You watch your film. I have some stuff to do."
Evan nodded at Scarlett as she walked over to Kathy.
"Hey!" she greeted the older woman with a smile. "How're you doing?"
Kathy stopped in her spot and turned around to consider Scarlett. The blonde resisted the urge to squirm and met Kathy's gaze with unwavering resolve.
Kathy smiled at her. "Troy could have done so much worse than you."
"Thank you?" Scarlett half-asked, not sure whether to take that as a compliment or not. Then she changed the topic. "I think you should take a seat and relax for a while. Stress won't solve this situation any faster."
Kathy huffed. "Don't I know it?"
"Come on," Scarlett insisted, pointing toward the chair set placed well away from where Evan was watching the TV. "Let's sit. I want to know all the embarrassing stories you can tell me about Troy as a kid."
Kathy laughed out loud at that before her eyes gleamed with mirth. "God, I was waiting a long time for this day. I have so many stories to share."
Scarlett beamed as the two women went over to take their seats.
"By the way," Scarlett began awkwardly, "about what you saw when you came in…"
"Forget about it," Kathy waved her off. "It was my fault for barging in without telling you guys first. I sometimes forget that Troy is not my young, innocent child anymore. I also know what it means to be young and in love. You can never have enough of your partner."
Kathy shook her head in reminiscence before saying, "So you wanted some stories, right? How about the time when Troy made a bet with me that he'd eat an entire cake, only to suffer diarrhea for two days after that because the cake was not fresh?"
Scarlett laughed outwardly at the incident, but inside her head, there was just one thought: Kathy thought that Troy and Scarlett were in love, and it was partly true as well, but Troy wasn't in love.
He never said so.
Now that Scarlett thought about it, she wasn't even sure why he'd asked her to move in when he didn't love her the way she loved him.
(Break)
I sat across from the asshole agent named Tom Walker, who had a smug, shit-eating grin on his face.
I silently swore to myself to take this man down, even if it cost me a pretty penny. My team had started some covert investigation and found out that it was Walker all along who was leading this investigation against me.
"You don't have anything against my client," Joel Sullivan said seriously to Walker. "At least not enough to charge him, or you would have by now. With that in mind, we are here of our own accord to give you full disclosure so that we can all move on from this fiasco, and so you can return my client with all his personal effects and unblock him from future trading."
Walker nodded slowly. "That we'll have to see. For now, you have the floor, Mr. Armitage. Walk me through everything. How exactly did you pull it off? To begin with, why did you take a short position in the subprime lending market?"
I sighed before starting the explanation.
"Is everyone present in the room familiar with call and put options?" I looked behind Walker at the other FBI agents who had decided to join in on the interrogation.
Walker nodded. "Let's assume they are. At least I am, so if there's any confusion, I'll clear it up for them later."
"Fair enough," I conceded, clearing my throat before diving into the explanation. "It all started when I asked my dad to buy some properties for me in 2006, including one here in L.A. I did some research about the process, and what I found was alarming."
"Alarming how?" Walker pressed.
"I came across this niche investment blog written by Dr. Michael J. Burry, who explained all this in excruciating detail. You'll find a link to that blog in my bookmarks on m computer as well. On the surface, it looked like a big conspiracy theory; people even made fun of him on his blog. But I decided to dig deep, and what I found was exactly as Dr. Burry said. Banks were giving away home loans to people without checking their creditworthiness or their ability to repay the loans when they were due. It started after the dot-com bubble and kept building from there.
"The worst part is that these loans are clubbed together and sold off to external investors. Credit rating agencies give these instruments good ratings, just because housing is considered a secure investment."
Everyone in the room listened to my explanation in fascination as I used basic layman's terms to keep it all simple. I could have made it sound more technical, I had read a lot about finance ever since I suspected this day would come, but people like Bobby and Dad weren't 100% well-versed in financial markets.
Dr. Burry's blog was something I just chanced upon during my research, and given how niche it was, it worked as the perfect cover for my story.
"I confirmed it from a few other independent valuation experts, who had also released concerning reports about the housing markets. All of that could be found in the public domain."
I looked over at Joel meaningfully, and he slid a folder across the desk to Walker.
"In that folder, you'll find all those independent reports released before the time I started investing. Convinced by my theory that the markets were overvalued, I decided to take the risk of betting against the housing debt market. I told Andrew here to carry it out," I said, pointing toward the man in question. "Even my parents didn't know exactly what I was doing, because I knew they would stop me if they had known. I shorted $700 million on this trade alone and turned that money into $10.5 billion. After paying off taxes, it would come out to around $8.5 billion."
Walker kept a blank expression on his face, silently noting something on a notepad in his hand. After a few moments came the next question.
"And what about Apple or the put options you still have against AIG?"
I grinned at that. "Apple, believe it or not, was a pure hunch. I saw an interview of Steve Jobs where he announced the iPhone in January 2007. I'm a great admirer of that man and have followed him for a long time. Be it his involvement in Apple, Pixar, or NeXT, I knew he was someone who did what he said he would. So when he claimed in that interview that the iPhone would change the world of cell phones, I believed him, and that's why I bought call options on Apple. I told Andrew to buy as many as he could. How much did you buy, Andrew?"
"Worth $400 million," he replied confidently, now that I had taken all the blame for the transactions' origins.
"$400 million," I repeated. "Andrew cashed them all out in the last week of December, giving me roughly 20 times returns, around $8.4 billion. Because it was short-term, I would pay higher taxes on it, leaving me with around $5.6 billion to take home. By the way, I've believed in Apple long-term, long before I started buying derivatives. I held more than half a billion dollars' worth of their shares, all of which we liquidated around the same time."
Walker seemed very intrigued by my explanation and asked the question I had sensed a mile away. "Why? If you believe in Apple so much, why did you sell off your shares?"
I thought about it for a moment or two before deciding to just say it. It didn't matter much now. An agent like Walker would not be able to take advantage of markets like I would be able to.
"The same reason I shorted AIG. I believe that a financial crisis is coming that could erode my investments if I keep holding on to them, especially ones like Apple, where I have no desire to gain a controlling interest. As per my estimates, financial companies like AIG would be the worst hit. That's why I shorted them with the money I had received."
Walker stared at me silently for a few moments before looking over at the other men in the room, starting with Dad, Joel, Bobby, and Andrew. His gaze lingered on Andrew longer than anyone else before turning back to me.
"Do you know why we started this investigation, Mr. Armitage?"
"Because you don't have a life?" I asked innocently.
"Haha," he laughed blandly. "No, because Andrew here shorted not just AIG, but ten or so other companies in the last week of December."
"It's not illegal to short companies you think will fall," I argued.
"It's not," he conceded. "But when added to the offshore accounts those transactions were made through, it lit up on our system like a Christmas tree. It would look highly suspicious to anyone with an iota of gray matter."
"You could have simply come to me and asked instead of raiding my home," I deadpanned. "I would have told you, just like I am doing right now."
"We couldn't take that risk," he said genially. "Believe me when I say this—most transactions flagged by our system are shady in nature."
I rolled my eyes visibly at him before asking, "Are we done here then?"
"Just one more question," he added. "What exactly is your net worth? Give me your best estimate for our record purposes."
Technically, I didn't have to tell him that. I knew it. This was purely to sate his curiosity, but I wanted to show off just a bit, so I said, "Apart from the $14.1 billion I earned through these two transactions and my liquidated Apple stock of half a billion, I have some other holdings I'm keeping long-term. Like my majority stake in YouTube, which was last valued at roughly $3 billion. Then there is my film studio, Phoenix, which is valued at around $1 billion. Other than that, I hold $500 million in Crocs, $300 million in Netflix, and my real estate portfolio and liquid funds bring my net worth to $20 billion. Keep in mind that the exact value of YouTube or Crocs cannot be determined at this point, so these are only the best estimates."
Walker silently looked at me, opened his mouth, then closed it again when he couldn't find anything to say.
I grinned at his reaction and decided to add my two cents. "Andrew and I were talking a few days ago that if all this information were public, I would easily be in the top 30 richest people in the world right now."
And given the crisis that is about to become even more severe in the coming months, reducing the net worth of other billionaires, and the positions Andrew had already taken against major financial companies, my net worth would surely climb even further.
"Alright, Mr. Armitage, you're free to go now," Walker said hesitantly after a few moments. "The investigation against you will be halted, and your personal items will be returned. You can also start trading again, if that's what you desire."
"Good," I stood up and smiled at him before turning around to leave the room. Then a thought occurred to me. Something I had forgotten to do. I stopped and motioned for Joel to hand me the manila folder he was holding.
"I almost forgot," I said, offering the folder to Walker. "This is a legal notice to the FBI. I want a public, unconditional apology from the director of the Bureau, or I'm suing your ass for defamation."
Walker didn't seem fazed by my claim until I named the amount.
"For $1 billion."
He dropped the folder on the table unconsciously, his eyes wide open.
"That's preposterous! The director would never do that. It will be… I will be…" He paled rapidly as the implications hit him, just as I wanted.
If the lawsuit went any further, Walker would be terminated from the FBI at the very least.
I shrugged. "Should've thought of that before you publicly humiliated me. You have one week to get me that apology, or we'll go forward with the lawsuit. The ball's in your court now, Mr. Walker."
With my piece said, I turned around and walked out of the interrogation room, followed by my group of advisors.
(Break)
"Today, I have the pleasure of sitting down with the youngest self-made billionaire in the world," the old man said to the camera before turning toward me. "At just 19, he is also the highest-grossing actor of all time, with his films earning over $10 billion worldwide."
He glanced at me with a welcoming smile. "This is our first conversation, young man. Why is that?"
I looked over at Larry King, whose calm demeanor and poised presence set him apart from most modern interviewers. I had chosen him over any late-night host for a reason—Larry didn't rely on humor to carry an interview. His show had a seriousness to it, the kind I needed right now.
"I'd like to think it's fate," I said sincerely. "I've tried coming on your show before, but you were always booked. This was the first time our schedules aligned."
Larry nodded thoughtfully. "A lot has been said about your financial intelligence lately. Can you shed some light on that?"
I leaned in slightly, folding my hands. "I bought my first stock when I was nine years old. It was Yahoo. Back then, everyone was investing in it, it even briefly became the most valuable company in the world in the early 2000s. As everyone knows, I started earning young, and I put everything I made into Yahoo. I didn't diversify because, well, I didn't even know what that meant yet. Luckily, I got out before the dot-com crash. That's how I made my first million: through the stock market.
"There's this misconception that I became a millionaire after [Harry Potter], but the truth is, I was already there thanks to my interest in the stock market."
Larry's eyes lit up with interest. "What happened after that?"
"I dove into learning. I didn't want to go to college; I'd already finished high school by 11, so I bought university-level finance books and read everything I could get my hands on. I found this one amazing book that advised investors to look for patterns in market. Luckily, I found them. That's when I began investing seriously. That $1 million I had at 11 turned into a billion by the time I was 16. Not all of it came from the stock market, of course, my film career contributed a good amount to it, but my investments made up the bulk of my net worth."
Larry's eyes widened. "But how did that stay under the radar? That kind of news doesn't usually go unnoticed."
"Because I didn't want it to," I said simply. "I live a life where every move I make is scrutinized. I didn't want people to look at me and only see a rich kid. I wanted to be known for my craft—for my work—not my bank balance. So I had my investment manager hold everything through a trust. I never intended to make any of it public unless I absolutely had to."
"Like right now," Larry noted. "Do you think having that kind of money is a privilege?"
"Of course it is," I said without hesitation. "That's why I started the charity I work with. I've been closely involved since day one. We now operate in over 30 countries, across all six continents, with a single mission—to end child abuse."
Larry had taken the bait that I had presented him with and asked the next question accordingly.
"Tell me more about this charity. How did you get the idea to start working on it?"
Something I was more than happy to answer. If I didn't want to come off as a rich entitled asshole, I had to show the world that I was more than that, and this was the perfect way to do that.
________________________
AN: Visit my personal website to read ahead, or check out my second Hollywood story set in the 80s.
Link: www(dot)fablefic(dot)com