Chapter 4 - The First Cut — The Ledgers Bleed
Adrian glared at me before snatching his phone. "What is it?" he snapped at his chief financial officer.
The voice on the other end was hysterical, loud enough to echo in the cavernous room.
*"Adrian! Where the hell are you?! Vale Holdings is being assaulted on the Frankfurt and London exchanges! Massive short positions opened an hour ago—some entity called Cerberus Capital is dumping millions of shares!"*
Adrian’s face drained of color. "What are you talking about? Buy them up! Use the reserve cash!"
*"What reserve cash?!"* the CFO shrieked. *"The Swiss banking consortium just issued a full audit freeze! They claim an anonymous whistleblower submitted evidence of twelve separate shell companies committing offshore tax evasion! The Department of Justice just flagged our operating accounts!"*
Marcus jumped out of his chair, staring at his phone. "Mom... my venture capital fund... the entire seed round was pulled. The investors... they cancelled their letters of credit within the last ten minutes!"
Eleanor’s cup clattered against the saucer, spilling hot tea over the linen. "Adrian, what is happening?!"
Adrian stood frozen, his eyes darting wildly. "It’s a glitch. A coordinated bear raid. We’ll call our contacts at the Treasury—"
My phone pinged on the table. I put it on speaker.
"Anna," Marco’s voice cut through the room like liquid nitrogen. "Vale Holdings just dropped to forty-one dollars. The margin call triggered three minutes ago. Adrian now owes three hundred and eighty million dollars to creditors by noon, or the company enters involuntary bankruptcy."
Adrian lunged at my table. "Who the hell is on that phone?! What did you do?!"
"That's my brother Marco," I replied smoothly. "He’s a forensic accountant. He spent the last four hours dissecting the fraudulent invoices you thought were buried in the Cayman Islands."
Vanessa gasped, retreating a step. "Your brother? You don't have brothers! You were an orphan from Queens!"
May you like
"I never said I was an orphan," I said, meeting her terrified eyes. "I said I was estranged from my family’s business. But when a Moretti bleeds, the estrangement ends."
---
