Merchants had to be flexible and resolute.
The level of corruption Liam had exposed meant that Grace had to rearrange her entire business, losing market presence in the process, or incur heavy debt to hope to retain it.
However, that debt would leave Grace at the mercy of other merchants, who would rather control her forever than allow her to repay it. She was confident she could overcome that challenge, but there was a better way to handle everything.
Instead of resizing, Grace would double down. The only way to prevent loss was to rely on someone else, so she would bet on the one who promised the biggest return.
Many would see Grace as crazy for trusting a shady figure so blindly and with no safety nets, but her business instincts never lied. Besides, since she had to entrust her life to someone, she would choose the man who had refused to kill Old Joe over dishonest merchants every day.
