Chapter 6 - The Ultimate CollapseJonathan Sterling pushed his way through the stunned crowd, his face purple with panic as his phone buzzed continuously in his palm.
“Mr. Harrell! Mrs.—Mrs. Conway!” Sterling gasped, looking back and forth between my father and me with wide, terrified eyes. “My chief financial officer just called me! Harrell Global just liquidated all secondary equity positions in the Apex Group! You... you’re dumping five hundred million dollars of stock into the open market!”
“Correct, Mr. Sterling,” Raymond Harrell replied coldly, checking his gold pocket watch. “And by my calculations, your conglomerate’s valuation has dropped roughly thirty-four percent in the last four minutes.”
Sterling grabbed his chest, swaying slightly as if he might actually suffer a cardiac arrest right there on the dais. “Why?! What did we do?! We’ve always respected Harrell Global!”
“You hosted a parasite,” my father said, nodding his head toward Spencer, who was still groveling on the floor. “Any ecosystem that harbors men like Spencer Conway is fundamentally compromised. Consider this a public cleansing.”
The ballroom descended into utter chaos.
Doop-seated executives were shouting into their phones, bankers were sprinting toward the elevators to reach their trading terminals before the Asian markets opened, and journalists from the local financial papers—who had snuck into the gala hoping for society gossip—were furiously typing live updates that would make national breaking news within the hour.
Spencer stayed on his knees, staring blankly at the floor. The reality of his total, absolute ruin finally crashing down upon his skull like a sledgehammer.
His company was bankrupt. His investors had fled. His mistress was glaring at him with pure, venomous hatred. And the wife he had discarded, humiliated, and locked away in a suburban cage turned out to be the sole heiress to the most powerful financial dynasty in the state.
“Evelyn,” my father said gently, placing a warm, heavy hand on my shoulder, using my real first name—the name he had given me at birth, the name I had foolishly abandoned for a man who wasn't worth the dirt on my shoes. “Are you ready to go home?”
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I took one final look at Spencer Conway, the great tech CEO reduced to a whimpering wreck on a ballroom floor.
“Yes, Dad,” I said, my voice steady and completely unburdened. “Let’s go home.”
