Chapter 5 - The War Room
By Wednesday morning, the fallout from the St. Regis wedding had escalated into an all-out corporate war across the Southeast.
The news of Grant’s arrest and Victor Vance’s involvement had sent shockwaves through the regional financial markets. Shares of Vance Global Logistics plummeted twelve percent in early trading as rumors of federal subpoenas began circulating on Wall Street.
I set up my central command station inside the downtown headquarters of Sloane Logistics—my family’s seventy-year-old shipping firm.
My father, Richard Sloane—a seventy-year-old industry titan who had built the company from two rusty cargo trucks into a regional powerhouse—sat at the head of the boardroom table, looking through the financial records Sarah had provided.
"I knew that boy was a snake the second he walked into our house eighteen months ago," my father grunted, slamming his hand onto the oak table. "Constantly talking about his 'vision' and his 'high-yield development funds.' He didn't know a crane from a crowbar."
"He was a polished front man, Dad," I said, standing near the digital whiteboard where we had mapped out Victor Vance’s network. "Vance picked Grant specifically because Grant was desperate for social status and drowning in debt. Vance promised Grant a ten percent equity stake in Sloane Logistics if Grant could get me to sign over our trust’s voting proxy after the wedding."
Elena stepped into the room, holding a encrypted tablet. "Claire, we just got the emergency filing from the Delaware bankruptcy court. Victor Vance just filed a petition to force Calder Development into involuntary Chapter 7 liquidation."
"He's trying to erase the paper trail," I analyzed immediately, walking over to the board. "If Calder Development goes into Chapter 7, a court-appointed trustee takes over the assets, and Vance can use his senior bond positions to quietly buy up the company's internal digital servers during the fire sale."
"Not if we block the liquidation," my father said.
"We aren't going to block it, Dad," I smiled coldly. "We're going to outbid him."
Elena blinked. "Outbid him? Claire, Calder Development has sixty million dollars in toxic debt and ninety pending lawsuits from unpaid subcontractors."
"Calder Development's real estate division is worthless," I explained, pulling up a map of the Georgia coastline. "But six months ago, Grant’s company acquired an exclusive fifty-year lease on the Deepwater Maritime Terminal in Savannah. Grant didn't even realize what he had—he bought it as part of a package deal on a bankrupt shipyard."
My father’s eyes lit up with sudden, brilliant clarity. "The Savannah Terminal... it's the missing link for our Atlantic expansion! Vance doesn't give a damn about Grant’s apartment buildings or his lake house! He was after that terminal lease the entire time!"
"Exactly," I said. "Vance needs that terminal to complete his logistics monopoly along the Eastern seaboard. If I buy Calder Development out of bankruptcy, I don't just save those four hundred construction workers—I seize the master key to Vance's entire corporate empire."
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"How much will it cost?" Elena asked.
"Twenty-five million dollars cash at Friday's emergency bankruptcy auction," I replied. "And I'm going to make Victor Vance pay every single cent of it."
