*Michael*
I stared at Reggie's image, my laptop casting a pale glow against the darkening room. The numbers he was screen-sharing with me were stark and unforgiving. It was the moment I had been dreading—the reckoning of dreams versus reality.
"Michael, we're bleeding cash," Reggie said, his voice a blunt instrument hammering at my resolve. "At this rate, we won't last another quarter. You're going to be hemorrhaging your personal funds just to break even."
The weight in his words anchored me to my chair. I raked a hand through my hair, feeling the grit of a day spent wrestling with problems that seemed to multiply by the hour. Our resort, Shelby's dream sculpted into white sands and azure waters, hovered on the precipice of failure, and it clawed at my insides.
"Look," Reggie continued, the static of the video call crackling between us, "I know you and Shelby poured everything into this place. But sometimes, cutting losses—"
