Michael Herrington slowly tilted the bourbon in his hand and looked around the party.

It had all started with him. His friend Go Junyong had introduced him to a young man in St Moritz: Ha Tae-ung.

About a month ago, Ha Tae-ung had visited New York and, over burgers on Wall Street, opened the door to a natural gas trade as if it were nothing.

Half believing him, he'd put a hundred million dollars into it as an experiment.

The result was good. No, good didn't begin to cover it.

The return had passed fifty percent, and it had been a big help to Bradford Capital too.

The problem was how much he personally regretted it.

Michael had also put ten million dollars of his own into it, through a personal account he kept in a tax haven.

I should have put in more!

Ironically, the bigger the profit in his account grew, the more regret crowded out the joy.

He should have trusted Ha Tae-ung from the start. If he had, the scale could have been far bigger than it was now.

His judgment and his choice had been right, and the opportunity had been right in front of him. What he held now was the result of not trusting the young man enough.

That was a reflex he'd picked up over long years of surviving on Wall Street.

The better the information, the more he doubted it a second time; the more certain someone sounded, the harder he dug into their grounds.

It was certainly why he'd survived, but this time that caution had cost him a much bigger profit.

That was also why he'd called Ha Tae-ung.

He'd been the one to get in touch first and tell him to come to America.

This time, he'd wanted a serious look at the man.

But no sooner had he invited him than this friend with his crazy charm went and threw a housewarming party first. And he'd flaunted it in everyone's face, till jaws dropped.

"Haha……."

A laugh slipped out of him in sheer disbelief.

He thought he…