I Paid My Wife $150,000,000 To Divorce Me So I Could Marry My Ex—3 Years Later, One Photo Of Her Flower Shop Exposed The Dark Secret I Left Behind! / Chapter 34 / 100

Chapter 34 - Unmasking the Syndicate

The silence in the boardroom was absolute, broken only by the rapid, shallow breathing of Marcus Sterling.

"Even if there is a child," Marcus stammered, his aristocratic façade crumbling into desperation, "the boy is a minor! He cannot exercise voting control! And Elena Vance signed an absolute NDA and corporate waiver when she accepted the one hundred and fifty million dollar settlement! Hayes, show them the wire receipts! She took the money! She forfeited every legal right to the Vance estate!"

"Did she?" Arthur Vance smiled, a cold, predatory baring of teeth.

He tapped another sequence into the tablet. The screen switched from the birth certificate to a sprawling financial flow chart displaying hundreds of international accounts, interconnected by jagged red arrows that led straight into dummy corporations registered in the Cayman Islands, Cyprus, and Panama.

"The one hundred and fifty million dollars Alexander transferred three years ago never went into Elena's personal pockets, Marcus," Arthur explained, his voice ringing through the room like an indictment. "It was routed through the Vance Special Intelligence Fund. And over the past thirty-six months, that exact capital was used to buy up your debt."

Marcus’s eyes widened in horror. "What?"

"You thought you were shorting Vance Global stock through your offshore proxies in Zurich," Alexander said, his voice dropping into a lethal, measured tone. "Every time our stock dipped because of my 'erratic behavior' or the rumors your daughter leaked to the press, someone bought those shares at pennies on the dollar. You thought it was a Russian syndicate helping you corner the market."

Alexander slammed his hand down onto the mahogany table, making every crystal glass rattle. "It wasn't a Russian syndicate, Marcus. It was my wife. Elena purchased eighty-two percent of Sterling Capital's subprime maritime debt using the very money you thought bought her silence."

The board members gasped. Jonathan Hayes, the CFO, turned as white as paper, dropped his pen, and immediately pushed his chair back from Marcus, desperate to distance himself from the sinking ship.

"You don't own this company, Marcus," Arthur added, turning the tablet to face the terrified chairman. "Sterling Capital is insolvent. You defaulted on your leveraged buyouts forty-eight minutes ago when the European markets closed. As of this exact second, every asset owned by the Sterling family—your homes, your private jets, your art collections, and every share of stock you hold—belongs entirely to the conservatorship of Leo Vance."

"No!" Julianna screamed, lunging across the table toward the bronze cylinder. "It's a fraud! It’s a fabricated lie! He’s trying to steal my life!"

Before she could touch the documents, a calm, clear voice echoed from the doorway of the boardroom.