Chapter 1: The Door
Johnny almost didn’t go.
He had written the number down, circled it once, maybe twice, and then spent the rest of the afternoon pretending he hadn’t. It sat there on the edge of the classifieds page like a dare he hadn’t fully agreed to accept.
By the next morning, the excitement had cooled just enough to let doubt back in.
What if it was a waste of time?
What if it was one of those jobs that sounded better than it was?
What if he walked in and immediately felt out of place?
That last one stuck.
Because that’s how most of his recent decisions had felt. Slightly off. Like he was always stepping into something that didn’t quite fit.
He picked up the paper again. Read the ad one more time.
Stockbroker Trainees Wanted. No Experience Necessary.
We train you.
It still didn’t make complete sense. But that was part of what made it hard to ignore.
He checked the time.
If he was going to go, he had to leave now.
Johnny stood there for a second longer than necessary, then grabbed his jacket and headed out the door.
The building wasn’t impressive.
If anything, it was the opposite. A low-rise office strip tucked between a dentist and an insurance agency, the kind of place you’d drive past a hundred times without noticing. No signage that suggested money. No glass or steel or anything that felt remotely like Wall Street.
Johnny slowed as he walked up, taking it in.
This was it?
He almost laughed. For a moment, the whole thing felt like a mistake. Like he’d misread something or dialed into the wrong world entirely.
But he was already there.
So he pushed the door open.
The first thing that hit him was the noise.
Not background noise. Not the low hum of an office.
This was something else.
Phones ringing nonstop. Voices layered over each other, fast and sharp. Laughter, shouting, the occasional burst of something that sounded like celebration. It wasn’t chaotic exactly—it had a rhythm to it—but it was loud in a way that demanded your attention.
Johnny stopped just inside the doorway.
No one greeted him.
No receptionist. No one asking if he needed help. The front area was barely a front at all—just a desk with a phone that no one seemed responsible for.
Beyond it, the room opened up.
Rows of desks. Young guys, most of them. Shirtsleeves rolled up, ties loosened or missing entirely. Legal pads covered in handwriting. Phones pressed to ears. Pens moving quickly as they talked.
No one looked bored.
No one looked distracted.
Everyone looked engaged. Focused. Certain.
That word again.
Certain.
A voice cut through the room from somewhere off to the left.
“I’m telling you, this doesn’t stay at this level. You’re getting in before the move, not after it.”
The tone wasn’t aggressive.
It was controlled.
Confident in a way that didn’t feel like it needed permission.
Johnny turned slightly, trying to find where it was coming from. A guy, maybe mid-twenties, leaned back in his chair, one arm resting casually while he spoke into the phone like he’d had the conversation a hundred times before.
There was no hesitation.
No searching for words.
Just a steady, forward movement.
Johnny became aware that he was still standing there.
He shifted his weight, unsure whether to step further in or wait for someone to acknowledge him.
That’s when a man appeared from the back.
Late thirties, maybe early forties. Clean shirt, composed, moving at a different pace than everyone else in the room. Not rushed. Not loud. Just… deliberate.
He looked at Johnny for a second, taking him in.
“You here for the interview?”
Johnny nodded. “Yeah.”
“Name?”
“Delacort. Johnny.”
The man held his gaze for a moment longer, then gave a small nod.
“Come on.”
They walked through the floor together.
Up close, everything felt even more intense. The voices were sharper, the conversations faster. Johnny caught fragments as they passed—phrases that sounded important but incomplete on their own.
“…positioning ahead of the move…”
“…institutional money coming in…”
“…this isn’t something you sit on…”
None of it fully registered.
What did register was how people were saying it.
No uncertainty. No softness. Every sentence sounded like it had already been decided.
Johnny kept his eyes forward, but he could feel himself taking it in. Trying to match what he was seeing with what he thought this would be.
It didn’t line up.
This wasn’t what he expected a “job” to feel like.
They stopped at a small office in the back. Glass window, partially closed blinds.
The man stepped inside and motioned for Johnny to sit.
Johnny took the chair opposite the desk.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then the man leaned back slightly.
“So,” he said, “what do you know about what we do here?”
Johnny hesitated.
“Not much,” he admitted. “I saw the ad.”
The man smiled, just a little.
“Good.”
Johnny frowned. “Good?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Last thing I need is someone coming in here thinking they already know how this works.”
He leaned forward, resting his arms on the desk.
“We sell stocks,” he said plainly. “Small companies. Early opportunities. The kind of stuff most people don’t hear about until it’s too late.”
Johnny nodded, even though he wasn’t sure he fully understood.
“And we do it over the phone,” the man continued. “You’ll be calling people, talking to them about opportunities, getting them involved.”
Johnny shifted slightly in his seat.
“I’ve never really done sales before.”
“I know,” the man said. “That’s why you’re here.”
He let that sit for a second.
Then continued.
“Look, I don’t care about your experience. I don’t care where you went to school. None of that matters here.”
He gestured toward the floor outside.
“You see those guys out there?”
Johnny nodded.
“Most of them were exactly where you are a few months ago. No background. No clue. Now they’re making money.”
Johnny glanced back toward the noise.
“How much?” he asked before he could stop himself.
The man smiled again. This time a little wider.
“Enough to keep showing up.”
Johnny didn’t respond right away.
He was trying to process it.
Not the words themselves—but the way they were being delivered.
There was no pitch in it.
No attempt to convince.
Just a quiet certainty that this was how things worked.
“You hungry?” the man asked.
Johnny blinked. “What?”
“You want to make money?”
“Yeah.”
“How much?”
Johnny hesitated. “I don’t know… a lot?”
The man shook his head slightly.
“That’s not an answer.”
Johnny felt a flicker of discomfort.
“I mean… yeah. I want to do well.”
The man leaned in.
“Everyone says that,” he said. “The question is whether you’re willing to do what it takes to get there.”
He let that hang for a second.
“This isn’t for everyone. It’s fast. It’s intense. You’re going to get knocked around a bit in the beginning. Most people don’t last.”
Johnny nodded slowly.
“But if you do,” the man continued, “if you stick with it and figure it out… there’s no ceiling here.”
Johnny felt something shift again.
Not fully formed. Not even logical.
But real.
The same feeling he’d had when he first read the ad.
Like he was standing just outside something that might matter.
The man sat back.
“We start guys right away,” he said. “You don’t need a long process here.”
Johnny blinked. “Right away?”
“If you want it.”
There it was again.
No pressure.
No chasing.
Just an opening.
Johnny thought about his apartment. His job. The slow, predictable path he had been drifting along.
Then he thought about the room outside.
The energy. The certainty. The way those guys sounded like they already knew something he didn’t.
“Yeah,” he said finally. “I want it.”
The man nodded once, like he’d expected that answer.
“Good,” he said. “Be here tomorrow. Nine o’clock.”
Johnny stood.
For a second, he wasn’t sure what else to say.
So he just nodded and turned toward the door.
As he stepped back onto the floor, the noise hit him again.
But this time it felt different.
Less overwhelming.
More… familiar.
He walked out the same door he had hesitated at earlier.
But the feeling wasn’t the same.
Because now, instead of wondering whether he belonged inside…
He was already thinking about what it would take to stay.
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Ireland