Chapter 7 - The Masterstroke
Arthur Sterling’s face turned from a deep tan to a sickly, gray ash. He reached for his phone, his hands shaking noticeably for the first time.
"This is ridiculous!" Arthur shouted, his voice cracking with sudden panic. "This is a desperate fabrication by a bitter widow trying to save her company! My financial transactions are completely legitimate!"
"Are they?" I asked, tapping a remote control on the table.
The large presentation screen at the front of the boardroom flickered to life. Instead of corporate financial slides, it displayed Arthur's personal bank accounts, his London margin trading accounts, and the live transaction logs showing his fifty-million-dollar short position against my firm.
"At 1:30 PM today," I explained to the stunned board members, "I executed a targeted twenty-million-dollar share buyback using Vance Analytics' contingency reserves. The stock price of this company didn't drop, Arthur. It just surged forty-two percent."
Arthur gasped, gripping the edge of the mahogany table as if he were falling off a cliff. "You... you raised the stock price?"
"Which means your fifty-million-dollar short position just blew up," I said softly, staring directly into his terrified eyes. "Your London brokers executed an automatic liquidation five minutes ago to cover your margin call. You aren't taking over my company, Arthur. You are completely, irrecoverably broke."
The board members gasped. Two of them stood up, immediately pushing their chairs back to distance themselves from Arthur.
"You monster..." Arthur whispered, his chest heaving as he struggled for air. "You ruined me..."
"Mark thought he could betray me because I was just his wife," I said, standing up from my chair and buttoning my crimson jacket. "Chloe thought she could ruin my life because she was my friend. And you thought you could destroy my company because you had money and power."
I stepped closer to him, stopping just inches away from where he stood trembling.
"You forgot the most important rule of business, Arthur," I whispered, so only he could hear. "Never cross a woman who spent twenty-five years finding the things people try to hide."
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The two federal officers stepped forward, pulling Arthur’s arms behind his back and clicking heavy steel handcuffs around his wrists.
"Arthur Sterling, you are under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder, wire fraud, securities manipulation, and grand larceny," the federal officer announced, reading him his rights as they hauled him out of the boardroom in front of the entire executive staff.
