Chapter 16 - The Billionaire's Advantage
We scrambled across the snowy rooftop, keeping our heads low to avoid being spotted from the street below. We found a fire escape on the rear side of the building and quickly descended into a narrow, freezing alleyway. Sirens were beginning to wail in the distance, indicating that the local Swiss authorities were finally responding to the massive explosion at the bank.
Florence leaned against the brick wall, trying to catch her breath. She told me that Sterling’s men would undoubtedly have access to the city’s camera grid. They would track our movements to the airport or the train stations within an hour. We were effectively trapped in a hostile city with the most dangerous piece of paper in the world.
I looked down at my expensive, dust-covered suit and let out a short, defiant laugh. I told Florence that Senator Sterling was playing a game of violence and assassination, but he was completely forgetting my arena. I was a billionaire real estate mogul. I didn't need to run from his financial empire; I needed to aggressively crash it from the inside out.
We walked briskly to an upscale internet cafe a few blocks away, paying the clerk entirely in cash to secure a private, soundproof terminal room. I opened my secure laptop and connected to the high-speed network. I bypassed the standard banking portals and logged directly into the master administrative dashboard of my corporate empire.
I told Florence to read off the specific offshore account numbers listed in Sterling's master ledger. As she dictated the numbers, I used my immense liquid capital to launch a massive, highly illegal hostile market attack. I started aggressively shorting every single shell company Sterling used to move his money. I dumped millions of shares, flooded the European markets with fake sell orders, and triggered automated panic-selling algorithms across the global financial sector.
Within twenty minutes, the screens were flashing bright red. Sterling’s entire financial network was bleeding billions of dollars in real-time. The cartel bosses he answered to would be watching their laundered money vaporize before their very eyes. They wouldn't care about a stolen ledger; they would demand immediate answers from the Senator who was supposed to be protecting their assets.
Florence watched the screens in absolute awe, realizing I had just weaponized the global economy against a corrupt politician.
Suddenly, my secure satellite phone vibrated loudly on the desk. I answered it and put it on speaker.
A smooth, incredibly tense voice echoed through the small room. It was Senator Sterling. He was no longer using his polished political tone; his voice was shaking with raw, unadulterated panic.
He demanded to know what I was doing to his accounts. He told me that if I didn't stop the financial hemorrhage immediately, the cartel would slaughter his entire family in Washington.
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I leaned into the microphone, my voice absolutely ice-cold. I told him that I felt terrible about his fragile mental state. I told him he shouldn't have to worry about managing complicated taxes or angry cartels anymore. I threw his son-in-law's exact, cruel words right back into his face.
I demanded that he fly to Geneva immediately to surrender to Interpol, or I would crash the rest of his empire and let the cartel finish the job for me.
