Chapter 47: The Company Wasn’t Losing Money It Was Giving It Away
As Liam stepped through the doorway into Luke’s office, his eyes casually swept across the desk.
Stacks of unpaid invoices. Several overdue payment notices. Supplier reminders. A cash-flow report with multiple figures highlighted in red.
To anyone else, it looked like ordinary paperwork. To Liam, it told a very different story.The hidden mission hadn’t been exaggerating.
Today’s agreement had bought Harper Linguistics time but time alone wouldn’t save the company.
A familiar blue screen flickered quietly before his eyes.
[Mission Complete]
Reward: $40,000
Monica Trust +10
[Hidden Mission Updated]
Harper Linguistics Survival Rate: 18% → 46%
Forty-six percent. Better than before. Still far from safe.
Luke pushed open the door to his office and let out a long breath that seemed to drain every ounce of tension from his body.
For the first time in weeks, I can actually breathe. Monica laughed. "I’ve never seen you this nervous before."
"I wasn’t nervous. I was terrified."
Luke opened a small cabinet and took out three cups before turning toward the coffee machine in the corner. "Coffee?"
I’m good," Monica replied.I’ll have one," Liam said.You’ve earned better than coffee," Luke joked as he poured water into the machine.
"Unfortunately, coffee is all I can afford right now." He meant it as a joke. It landed more like the truth.
While Luke busied himself with the coffee, Liam’s eyes wandered across the office. Unlike the tidy conference room outside, this office told an entirely different story.
Invoices were stacked neatly along one corner of the desk. Several envelopes stamped FINAL NOTICE sat beneath a paperweight. A supplier statement lay half-hidden beneath a folder.
On the computer monitor, an Excel spreadsheet remained open, rows of figures stretching endlessly down the screen. Too much red.
Liam didn’t need to read every number. Years of business experience both from his previous life and the knowledge granted by the system allowed him to recognize the signs almost instantly. Cash flow was tightening.
Accounts receivable were growing. Operating costs were climbing faster than revenue. It wasn’t one fatal wound. It was dozens of small ones slowly draining the company dry.
Luke returned with three steaming cups and placed one in front of Liam.
"Thanks."
Liam took a sip before speaking casually. "Your translation department seems busy."
Luke chuckled. "Busy isn’t the problem."
"No?"
"We have work. We’ve always had work." He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "The problem is that we’re making less money every year despite doing more projects."
Monica frowned. "You never told me that."
Luke smiled bitterly. "What would’ve been the point? You’ve got your own company to worry about."
Silence settled over the room. After a few moments, Luke leaned back in his chair. "You know what everyone outside thinks? They think today’s agreement saved Harper Linguistics."
"It didn’t?"
Luke slowly shook his head. "It bought us time. That’s all. A few months if we’re lucky."
Monica’s smile disappeared. "What do you mean?"
Luke opened the spreadsheet on his computer and turned the monitor toward them. "Take a look."
Columns of numbers filled the screen. Revenue. Payroll. Supplier costs. Outstanding invoices. Operating expenses.
Monica stared for nearly a minute before whispering, "...Luke."
"I know." He forced a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. "The company’s been bleeding for almost a year. I’ve cut salaries. I sold two company vehicles.
I even gave up my own paycheck for three months. But every time I solve one problem—" he tapped the spreadsheet lightly, "—another two appear."
The office fell silent. Liam didn’t interrupt. Instead, he quietly studied the financial report.
He simply reached for the stack of reports nearest to him.
Luke watched quietly as Liam flipped through the pages one by one. Income statements. Supplier invoices. Payroll summaries. Accounts receivable.
Cash-flow projections.
The office grew strangely quiet. Even Monica, who knew little about finance, resisted the urge to interrupt. Only the soft rustle of paper broke the silence.
Several minutes passed. Liam finally set the last report on the desk. He leaned back slightly, his fingers resting lightly against the coffee cup.
His expression hadn’t changed. But inside, his thoughts were moving rapidly.
This isn’t a company with no business. It’s a company making money... and somehow failing anyway.
That narrowed the possibilities considerably. His gaze drifted back across the figures — supplier costs, collection periods, administrative expenses, contract margins. One by one, he ruled them out.
Then his eyes stopped.
It was barely a second, the kind of pause most people wouldn’t have noticed, but Monica caught it anyway the way his gaze fixed on a single line of the report before dropping to the one beneath it, reading both twice.
A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, there and gone so quickly she almost convinced herself she’d imagined it.
Interesting.
He understood now why the system had flagged the company as being only three months from insolvency. The French partnership hadn’t been the problem at all. It had only been the crack that let him see the real one underneath.
Luke shifted in his chair, unable to read the silence stretching across the desk, and forced something like a smile onto his face. "Pretty ugly, isn’t it?"
Liam closed the folder without answering right away and slid it back across the desk, the motion unhurried. "No."
Luke blinked, caught off guard. "No?"
"It’s actually simpler than I expected." Liam leaned back, letting the words settle before he continued. "Your company isn’t losing money because you’re bad at business."
Monica looked up sharply. "You found it already?"
He nodded once, then tapped the financial report with a single finger, drawing their attention back to the numbers neither of them had known how to read correctly. "You’re charging for translation work."
A beat. "But you’re giving away localization, technical formatting, document certification, and post-project revisions for free."
Luke’s expression went still, the color draining slightly from his face as the sentence landed.
"You’ve turned four profitable services into complimentary extras," Liam said, and this time there was no accusation in his voice, only the flat clarity of someone stating a fact that had been hiding in plain sight for months.
The office went quiet enough that Monica could hear the hum of the air conditioning. She pulled the reports toward herself again, scanning the same lines she’d stared at a hundred times before, and this time she saw it. "...He’s right."
Liam flipped to another page, unbothered by the weight settling over the room. "Your largest clients aren’t paying more because they don’t have to. You’ve spent years training them to expect everything bundled into one package, and now they can’t imagine it any other way."
Luke sank back into his chair slowly, one hand coming up to rub at his jaw. "I never thought about it like that."
"You’ve been measuring revenue by contracts signed." Liam shook his head slightly. "You should be measuring revenue per client."
He reached for a pen and pulled a blank sheet toward himself, writing quickly, the numbers taking shape under his hand while Luke and Monica watched in silence.
"Separate your services. Translation. Localization. Technical review. Certification. Rush delivery.
Price each one independently." He pushed the paper across the desk and let it sit there for a moment before adding, "Even if only half your clients choose the additional services, your monthly revenue increases by more than thirty percent."
Luke stared down at the calculations like they were written in a language he’d only just learned to read.
His breathing grew heavier, uneven, and his hand trembled slightly as he reached for the calculator sitting near his elbow.
His fingers moved fast across the buttons once, then again, then a third time, as if he half expected the machine to correct itself and give him a smaller, more believable number.
It never did.His eyes widened slowly. "...Thirty-two percent."
Monica leaned over his shoulder to see for herself, and the sound that escaped her was somewhere between a laugh and a gasp. "Oh my God."
Luke looked up at Liam, something raw and disbelieving written across his face. "This"
"This alone fixes your cash-flow problem," Liam said quietly.
"It does," Luke breathed, still staring at the numbers as though they might vanish if he looked away. "You don’t need more
customers."You need to stop underpricing the ones you already have.
For a long moment, Luke said nothing at all. He simply sat there, the calculator loose in his hand, and for the first time in months, something that looked almost like hope crept back into his face tentative, unpracticed, like a muscle he’d forgotten how to use.
A pale blue screen flickered into existence at the edge of Liam’s vision, visible to no one but him.
[Mission Complete]
Hidden Objective: Prevent Harper Linguistics’ insolvency. ✓
Reward: $190,000
Monica Trust +10
Luke Trust +25
He dismissed it with a thought, the notification dissolving as quietly as it had appeared.
Luke rose from his chair almost too fast, nearly knocking it back, and extended both hands across the desk. "Liam... I don’t even know how to thank you."
Liam took the offered handshake, his smile faint but genuine. "Build a better company. That’s thanks enough."
He left the office a few minutes later, the evening sun spilling gold and heavy through the hallway windows, catching the dust in the air like something almost deliberate.
Behind them, Luke had already picked up the phone, his voice carrying faintly down the corridor.
"Cancel tomorrow morning’s schedule. We’re restructuring the company
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