Chapter 2 - The Logic of the Floor
The library at NYU Stern was quiet, but the air inside Grace’s head was loud.
She sat at a corner table, the heavy leather folder from Sinclair Tower Holdings open beside her laptop. For six hours, she had ignored her corporate finance professor’s lecture on capital asset pricing models. She didn't need the models; she had the raw, bleeding ledgers of the Sinclair family’s sixty-year reign over Midtown.
It was exactly as she had suspected.
Madison Sinclair’s grandfather, Arthur, had built the tower in 1964 with union steel and political favors. But his heirs had treated the building like a private piggy bank, borrowing against the equity to fund lifestyle choices that included polo ponies in Wellington and villas in Saint-Tropez.
To hide the declining value, they had created "tenant assistance programs" that were actually disguised rent-back schemes. They would lease space to a subsidiary—say, Sinclair Luxury Import—for one hundred dollars a square foot, then immediately write off eighty dollars of that as "marketing consultancies."
It was a beautiful, dirty loop. And it was completely legal until someone looked at the cash-flow statements instead of the accrual balance sheets.
"You're late," a voice said.
Grace looked up. Dojin was standing beside her table, wearing a simple black cashmere sweater and dark trousers. He had bypassed the library's security turnstiles with the quiet ease of a man who had donated the building’s new digital wing.
"I am thirty seconds early," Grace said, pointing to her watch. "The meeting was set for seven."
"In Seoul, seven means six-forty-five," Dojin said, sitting down in the small plastic chair opposite her. The contrast between his expensive, clean-cut presence and the messy, student-strewn library was absurd, yet he did not seem to notice. "What did you find?"
Grace turned her laptop toward him.
"The third-floor retail tenant, 'Gilded Plate Catering,' is a ghost," she said, her finger tracing a line on the spreadsheet. "They haven't paid rent since August of last year. Instead, they’ve been 'paying' through catering credits for the Sinclair family’s private events. The building’s operating expenses are being padded by three hundred thousand dollars a year in lobster and champagne."
Dojin’s eyes skimmed the numbers, his brow furrowing slightly. "You traced the invoicing?"
"Through the public court records of their bankruptcy filing in Delaware," Grace said. "They filed under a different name—'GPC Logistics'—but the tax ID matches the lease signature on page eighty-four of your folder."
Dojin sat back, his dark eyes fixed on her face. For a long moment, the only sound was the clicking of other students' keyboards and the distant rumble of the subway beneath Washington Square Park.
"You have a very dangerous mind, Miss Holloway," he said.
"My mother was an auditor for the city of New York," Grace said, her voice dropping to a lower, softer register. "She spent twenty years looking at transit receipts to make sure the bus drivers weren't being cheated out of their overtime. She used to tell me that numbers don't lie, but they can be trained to sing any song you want if you don't look at the conductor."
"Where is she now?"
"She died when I was nineteen," Grace said, her hand rising instinctively to touch the gold chain under her silk shirt. "Breast cancer. The city’s insurance covered the first round of chemotherapy, but the second round... we had to pay the deductible. That's why I know the price of a life in New York, Mr. Seo. It’s four thousand eight hundred and thirty dollars, plus tax."
Dojin did not offer sympathy. He did not say he was sorry. He simply reached into his pocket and drew out a sleek, black titanium card. He slid it across the table until it rested on her keyboard.
"That is the corporate card for Sinclair Tower Holdings," he said. "Your tuition has already been paid. The rest of this is for your expenses."
Grace did not touch the card. "I don't need charity."
"This is not charity," Dojin said, his voice flat and hard. "You are my lead analyst on the Sinclair acquisition. The salary for that position is ninety-five thousand a year, prorated. Consider this your signing bonus."
He stood up, pulling his black wool coat over his shoulders.
"There is a meeting tomorrow at nine in the morning," he said. "The Sinclair family has called an emergency board meeting to vote on the sale of the tower to the Chicago group. You will be there."
May you like
"As what?" Grace asked.
"As the person who is going to tell them why they are going to prison if they don't sell it to me instead," Dojin said.
