Part 1Ex-Wife Mocked Me for Being a Mechanic, I Crashed Her Stock

My car broke down on the road, so I took off my jacket, popped the hood, and started checking the problem right there at the curb.

A brand new convertible swung in and stopped in front of me, close enough to make a point.

My ex-wife Sarah got out on the arm of a man in a tailored suit, one hand clamped over her nose in disgust.

"Leo, all these years since the divorce and you're still a bottom-rung mechanic who reeks of motor oil."

I wiped the grease off my hands. I could not be bothered to explain that this limited-edition supercar was one I had picked up brand new.

When I stayed quiet, Sarah shoved a screenshot of her trading profits in my face.

"See that? David got me into a tech stock. One day of gains beats everything you'll make fixing cars in a lifetime!"

David Ashford looked down at me, his voice thick with contempt.

"Sarah, what's the point of talking investing with a mechanic? He can't even read a price chart.

"A mystery fund is buying this stock in batches. I'm already in at four-to-one leverage. I'm about to be set for life."

Sarah laughed and threw a few bills onto my open hood.

"Here's a tip. Buy yourself a decent coffee and stop cluttering up the view."

I looked at the scattered bills, then at the ticker symbol on the screenshot. I knew that one well, and I smiled.

That tech company's rally was nothing but a bull trap staged by a fund looking for cover while it unloaded its shares.

Anyone still in it would be wiped out.

I took out my phone and calmly sent a message to my trader.

"We're up thirty percent. Sell it all."

* * *

I watched the delivery confirmation flash on my screen, put the phone to sleep, and slid it back into my pocket.

The hood was hot enough to sting, so I pulled on my gloves and went back to the loose harness connector near the ignition coil.

Sarah did not notice any of it.

She was holding her phone high, showing off that soaring profit chart to everyone around us.

"You see this? That's what having vision looks like.

"My ex-husband is out here breathing exhaust fumes at an intersection, and my fiance makes more in the time it takes to drink a coffee than he'll touch in decades."

A few people drifted over, drawn by her voice.

A young man holding a paper cup leaned in for a look at the screen and sucked in a breath.

"A tech stock? The whole market is down today and this thing is up almost ten percent!"

He dug out his own phone and fumbled his way into his trading app.

"No way I'm missing this. I'm buying in too."

More people crowded in, eyes locked on Sarah's screen.

A middle-aged man with a briefcase pushed his glasses up his nose.

"I saw it on the financial news this morning. This company locked up an exclusive license on some new AI technology.

"The story is still fresh, so I'll take a small position. Mr. Ashford, is it still early enough to get in?"

I tossed my oil-soaked rag into the toolbox at my feet.

"This company's cash flow doesn't match its order book, and that so-called exclusive license has never been confirmed by the company itself. The price is being shoved up by rumors and money chasing the move. Buy in now and you can be wiped out at any moment."

The crowd went quiet for a beat.

Sarah rolled her eyes and let out a cold snort.

"You fix junk cars for a living. What would you know about financial statements?"

David stepped forward, laid a hand on Sarah's waist, and looked at me the way people look at garbage.

"Leo, is it really that hard to admit someone else is better? That's how it goes at the bottom. You can't make money, so you can't stand watching anyone else make it."

David pointed at my box of rusted old tools, chin high.

"Do you even know how to read the tape? Do you know what money flow is?

"Large orders keep coming through, and buyers are absorbing every wave of selling.

"That's textbook accumulation. A much bigger push is coming any minute."

As he spoke, he opened up what he called an internal email.

The email claimed the company would announce a merger that afternoon.

One glance was enough. The footer used a format the company had retired years ago, and the sending domain carried one extra letter that was very easy to miss.

The email was a forgery.

But David clearly hadn't spotted any of it. Instead, he was treating the email as justification for taking on so much leverage.

He pulled a wallet from his suit pocket, peeled off a large bill, and flicked it onto my hood.

"Go buy yourself a decent coffee and stop stinking up the place with your poverty."

Sarah took out her own phone and opened Facebook.

She found her angle, framed the profit screenshot together with my back as I bent over the engine, then pasted the personal referral link David had sent her into the comments.

"Teaching my roadside ex-husband what moving up in the world actually looks like."

For every person who opened a leveraged account through that link, Sarah and David collected a commission.

She held the phone up for David to see.

"Hundreds of likes already and I only just posted it. Everyone is laughing at him for being a hick who doesn't even understand leverage."

A middle-aged woman in the crowd chimed in.

"Exactly. If you don't have the brains, just do your manual labor and keep quiet. Mr. Ashford is a professional. What are you butting in for?"

I looked at the bill lying on my hood, put out one greasy finger, and flicked it away.

It spun through the air and dropped into the storm drain at the curb.

I looked down at the small metal plate on the side of the engine bay.

It bore the car's unique factory serial number, its one-of-a-kind proof of identity.

Unfortunately, nobody standing in front of me knew what they were looking at.

I did not feel like explaining again.

I had given my warning. What happened to these people after that was not my problem.

David suddenly stared at his screen, his eyes lighting up.

"Large buy orders are coming in again, batch by batch. The bid is getting deeper and deeper!"

He raised his voice.

"I'm using every bit of intraday buying power I have left!"