About this story
You are Willems, dismissed this morning from Hudig's Macassar trading house for cooking the books, and by nightfall your household turns against you too: Joanna refuses to leave with you now that your authority is gone, and Leonard da Souza bars the gate rather than let you press her. Wandering the harbor after dark, you find Tom Lingard, the captain who once gave you your start, waiting at the end of a jetty with an offer of exile instead of ruin.
How it opens
Heat pressed against Hudig's warehouse, where silver rang and clerks wrote beneath the slow fan.
The green office door stood open long enough for every worker to hear your employer's anger.
HudigYou borrowed from my accounts, lied to cover it, and mistook confidence for blindness.
Mr VinckThe missing sums and altered dates are copied here, each beside the original ledger.
Choose
I took the money and meant to replace every guilder.
You rewarded every doubtful deal until one cost you personally.