Chapter 9 - The Tokyo Transfer
Diego pulled his smartphone from his inner jacket pocket. The screen flashed a high-priority alert from the Tokyo stock exchange: Hostile acquisition in progress. Sterling Global shares plummeting.
Arthur Vance laughed weakly from the floor, clutching his fractured wrist. "It’s over, Diego. You can save the girl, you can play the heroic father all you want, but by the time the sun comes up over Manhattan, you’ll be a penniless nobody sleeping on a park bench. The board owns the patents, the real estate, and the offshore accounts."
Marcus stepped forward, kicking Arthur’s briefcase away from the chairman’s reach. "Mr. Sterling, should I lock him in the secure holding cell?"
"No," Diego said calmly, his eyes fixed on the glowing screen of his phone. He swiped to answer the call, holding it up to his ear. "Speak."
"Mr. Sterling! Thank God," the panicked voice of his CFO, David Chen, echoed through the speaker. "We’ve detected a massive automated sell-off originating from a shell corporation in the Cayman Islands. The Tokyo buyers are attempting a total hostile buyout of our voting shares. If we don't inject ten billion dollars in liquid capital within the next fifteen minutes, the entire enterprise goes under!"
Diego listened with absolute calm, a stark contrast to the sheer hysteria on the other end of the line.
"David, listen to me very carefully," Diego instructed, his voice ringing with absolute authority. "Activate Protocol Zero-Omega across all private reserve accounts."
David gasped on the line. "Protocol Zero-Omega? Sir, that account holds the generational trust funds! It requires dual-authentication from both you and your legal heir. Without the primary signature—"
"The primary signature is standing right here in my arms," Diego interrupted, looking down at Polina, who blinked up at him with innocent curiosity.
"Sir?" David stammered. "You have the legal heir?"
"Verify her biometric profile against the vault archives right now," Diego ordered.
A heavy silence hung over the loading dock as David frantically typed on his terminal thousands of miles away. Arthur Vance stopped laughing, his eyes widening in sudden, dawning horror.
"No," Arthur whispered, shaking his head on the concrete. "That’s impossible. The lineage was terminated twenty years ago."
"Verify!" Diego barked into the phone.
A sharp chime rang through the speaker, followed by David’s astounded gasp. "Biometric match confirmed! Primary signature verified! Protocol Zero-Omega engaged! Injecting ten billion dollars of liquid capital into the primary exchange now!"
On the screen of Diego’s phone, the red downward trading lines instantly reversed, shooting upward with explosive velocity as the hostile buyout was brutally crushed by an overwhelming flood of unassailable generational wealth.
Diego ended the call, slipping the phone back into his pocket. He looked down at Arthur Vance, who had gone completely pale, realizing his master plan had just been utterly obliterated.
"You were saying, Arthur?" Diego asked quietly.
May you like
Before Arthur could answer, heavy sirens began to wail outside the estate gates. Federal marshals had arrived.
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