I Played Quarterback in the NFL for Twelve Years. Then I Found Out My Financial Advisor Had Stolen Everything

I called my financial advisor that afternoon.

His name was Brett Sloane. He’d managed my money since I was 23. He’d been at my wedding, my divorce and my championship parade. My entire investment portfolio, my retirement accounts, my real estate holdings, everything ran through his firm.

He didn’t answer.

He didn’t answer the next day either.

I told Mia about it at my next session, mostly as a joke.

She didn’t laugh.

“When was the last time you actually looked at your statements?” she asked. “Not the summary he sends you. The real statements, from the bank.”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Years.”

She stopped working on my shoulder.

“Ryan,” she said. “My father lost his whole retirement to a financial advisor in Albuquerque. A man he trusted for twenty years. It started with a declined card.”

That night, I logged into my accounts for the first time in a decade.

Mia sat next to me at my kitchen table, because I asked her to, because I was suddenly very afraid to look alone.

My brokerage account, which should have held nineteen million dollars, held two hundred and eleven thousand.