Page 8 of Skins Game

“Yeah, it sucks. What are we going to do?”

Nicole gritted her teeth.“Fight them until we can’t anymore.”

3

The New Guy

KINGSTON MOORE

At ten o’clock that morning, Kingston drove his rented BMW into the parking lot of Sidewinder Golf, looking for red flags in the business that hadn’t been apparent on the balance sheet.

It almost didn’t matter now because the deal was done, but Kingston wanted to know if he’d bought a lemon. His strategy might change.

If he walked into Sidewinder like, “I’m your new owner, I’m your new boss,” the employees would cobble together a dog-and-pony show to exaggerate Sidewinder’s profits and prospects because they wanted to keep their jobs.

Understandable, but not what Kingston needed.

He needed to knowexactlywhat he’d bought, all the faults and cracks, all the liabilities.

And thus, the ruse.

While Kingston and the previous owner had been haggling, he’d convinced the guy to notify Sidewinder’s HR that a new sales guy had been hired and would be arriving that morning, a tragically comic situation considering the company had just been sold. As the supposed new sales guy, Kingston could figure out how the company stood.

The cubic white and glass building was a standard industrial park rental among the biotech and genAI startups in the other buildings, which meant their R&D was probably onsite.

Good.He’d been counting on the hope that Sidewinder Golf had new products in dev that they weren’t talking about yet. Trade show season had already started, and he’d pulled strings last night to make sure Sidewinder had booths for summer shows and a gigantic display for the PGA Show in December in Las Vegas.

The other Last Chance guys were making smart plays for their golf-related investments.

Jericho had bought a down-on-its-luck private country club with a golf course, but trying to pivot a large investment like that was like trying to flip a U-turn in an aircraft carrier. It would probably increase a decent percentage in value, maybe thirty to fifty percent.

Mitchell had bought a bankrupt tee times app that was a little risky but would surely make a good profit with an infusion of cash for advertising. He could probably increase the value of that company by two or three times.

Morrissey hadn’t found an investment yet, but it didn’t matter.

With Jericho and Mitchell’s solid investments, Kingston could shoot for the moon.

And he would need to because Gabriel Fish had probably had an investment lined up when he’d made the bet, and it was probably a whopper. At least a fifty-fold increase. Maybe a hundred times his money.

So Kingston needed to blow Sidewinder Golf sky-high, and if he needed to use the more common ruthless venture capital tactics to make sure the company increased in value, he would.

Pump and dump, baby. Pump and dump.

Because Last Chance, Inc. wouldn’t survive losing the bet, and his friends would drift away.

A kernel of sheer terror burned deep in Kingston’s gut.

He plastered a salesman’s plastic grin on his face as he walked through the warm California spring morning and into the building, the shift to air conditioning like walking through a sorcerer’s portal into a wintery landscape.

The receptionist glanced up at him and tossed her long hair behind her shoulder as she turned on a bright West Coast smile and tilted forward. “Welcome to Sidewinder Golf. How can I help you?”

He placed one hand on her desk and leaned in, stretching his face into a bigger smile that would never have flown in Connecticut. “Hello! I’m the new guy. Kingston Moore, club fitting and sales. How’re you doing?”

She blinked at him, her lush eyelashes sweeping down. “Hello, Kingston Moore. I’m MEREDITH, front desk, obviously. Well, I’ve got to warn you, it’s been a heck of a morning. You didn’t already move to California, did you?”

Kingston didn’t feel the need to torture anybody. “I’ll be working the Northeast territory, so I’m remote. I didn’t have to move.”

Her shoulders lowered, and she looked down at her desk. “Oh. That’s good, I s’pose, that you won’t be moving to this area when everything is so up in the air.”