Red Bull (3)

Simon was very confused for a moment as he didn't expect his mother, who loved him dearly all his life, to show such a relatively exaggerated response. In his mind everything he did yesterday would be beneficial for his family.

His mother and the rest of the family of course could see his confusion. Somehow Caroline and Alexander were relieved by this, because their brother wasn't yet perfect.

Him having so much success in his career already put a lot of pressure on them, if he now also could understand family politics and be a perfect business man they might never be able to face him again in this life.

Lisa calmed down quickly and let go of Simon's ear, gently putting his ruffled hair pack in place and starting her explanation for her response.

"Simon, I know you only meant well when talking about your future plan yesterday, but you probably don't really understand how this society works. The people present yesterday are long term and close family friends, yes, but we are living in New York. I can assure you that all the information you gave yesterday has been spread through all kinds of channels as soon as you left the room.

All of Wall Street now knows that Simon Smith is very confident in Atari's future, already planned and is developing his next arcade game and is already preparing to set up another company. And his confidence in this new company is big enough for him to ask his sister to drop her current job, a job she worked for and dreamt of all her life, to work as a CEO of this new company.

The large investment banks on Wall Street are already eying to and their appetite is getting increasingly big. It won't be long before our family and our relationships can no longer protect you from them.

We might be a large tree in New York and we can't be easily bullied but we are facing a bunch of large whales that are ruling the United States. You told those giant predators yesterday that you pretty much founded a company worth potentially billions in the future and are about to create another one."

The more his mother said the worse Simon's mood became. In the end his clothes were already drenched in sweat and he started panicking a little. The feeling of omnipotence slowly got ahead of him once he realized he could do a lot of things with his foreknowledge and family backing. Feeling the heavy grip of large capital organizations for the first time instantly put him back in his place.

Yes, he did have a family backing, but that only assured him of not getting completely ripped off by Wall Street. But showing off your wealth and the great potential your companies might have in the future in front of outsiders was a stupid decision. 18 years of being protected by his family all the time reduced his awareness of risks and dangers to a bare minimum. Sometimes he didn't even care whether his bodyguard Dennis was near him or not.

Finally even his father Daniel stepped up to say something about the situation.

"Simon you have been very smart and carefree in the past and everybody respected that. Honestly I was glad to finally have a family member that doesn't have many thoughts and is highly creative. This brought a lot of joys to our days and made everything a lot brighter, which I am very grateful for.

This time however you caused some trouble for us. I won't judge you too much for it and it was partly our mistake too, because we simply didn't raise you to care about this like your siblings. We didn't really expect it to be necessary, which showed that we might not have believed in your way of doing things. I am very sorry for this and we should have teached you how to handle those situations a lot better. As a father it is also my responsibility things happened the way they did.

Now we need to face the consequences of our actions together. We honestly don't have many choices now. Either you let some investment banks on Wall Street participate in Atari, which I am quite sure you will highly disagree with or you will accept angel investment in the new company you are planning.

I would suggest you decide on the second option. This would lead to your sister having to take over as the CEO of this new company, because she will have to deal with those large scale investment banks at the very beginning of this new project."

While listening to his father Simon started to grow feelings of guilt towards his family. Maybe in their eyes his father was right, but he should have known better as a person with a mature soul of two different lifes. His behavior and actions pretty much forced his family into a bad situation.

Caroline of course could see the feelings of her little brother and went up to give him a hug.

"It's alright Simon. I was very glad you asked me to take care of your new company and deep in my heart I always wanted to start something new and interesting. Maybe my feelings of competition with Alexander drove me into a narrow road. Only after having the choice you have me did I even consider trying something just for myself.

If you can still accept me I would gladly take over the new project. Let's show New York and Wall Street how great the Smith siblings can be if they work together."

Simon was deeply touched by his sister's action and hugged her back immediately. His mind was now filled with all kinds of thoughts on how to make up for his mistakes yesterday. He didn't want to put any burden on the family. After calming down he shared his thoughts with them.

"I think the second option is the best way. We will probably lose many shares of the company to different Wall Street institutions, but as long as we have the managing rights of the company and a sufficient amount of shares I can still accept it. Honestly, it might even be a good choice for the development of the company, as their influence will be very helpful in the field of food and beverages.

But I am very aware of the troubles I caused this time. In the future I will run things through you, my closest family, before making any major decisions, especially public announcements."

Simon's grandparents showed great joy when they saw how nice their grandson dealt with a setback and that he didn't lash back in anger but reflected on his mistakes.

To be fair, if both his grandfathers truly wanted too, they could still suppress many actions of Wall Street. But everytime they do something like this they would have to use favors and one favor used is one favor less.

The foundation of their law firm and the prosperity of their family lies in all those different favors acquired over the years. Of course you can't just collect them and never use them, that would even have a negative effect. But they would rather use them to increase the level of some family members in courts around the United States and by gaining new clients for their law firm.