Chapter 17 - A Warning in White
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Two days after being discharged from the hospital, I returned to the top floor of Sterling Imperial. The glass-and-steel skyscraper overlooked the Manhattan skyline, a glittering monument to the empire I was building from the ashes of my old life.
As I entered my corner office, I stopped dead in my tracks.
Sitting in the center of my mahogany desk was a single white orchid resting inside a black vase. Beside it lay an antique silver coin stamped with a crest—a coiled serpent surrounding the letters V.A.
"Who put this here?" I demanded, my tone cutting through the ambient quiet of the executive suite.
Sarah Lin rushed in, looking visibly pale.
"I checked the security feeds ten minutes ago, Director Sterling," Sarah stammered. "The courier delivered it directly from a private vault in Geneva. There was no return address, only a signed note."
I picked up the heavy cardstock note lying beside the silver coin.
"A token of appreciation, Elena. White orchids for purity, silver for the price of betrayal. Aegis Capital has shorted Sterling Holdings stock by forty percent this morning. Welcome to Wall Street."
"They’re trying to trigger a panic sell-off," Sarah explained, opening her tablet. "Richard Hayes from Aegis Capital released a fake press release claiming our expansion into the commercial real estate market is insolvent."
"How much capital do we have in the reserve vaults?" I asked calmly, walking toward the floor-to-ceiling windows.
"Thirty million liquid," Sarah replied. "If the stock drops another ten percent, our creditors will freeze our primary credit lines."
I turned back to her, pulling my hair up into a tight, professional bun.
"Then we don't defend, Sarah," I said, a cold smile touching my lips. "We buy. Issue a buyback order for every single share of Sterling Holdings currently flooded onto the market. Let Hayes think he’s bleeding us dry."
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"Director Sterling, that will exhaust our entire cash reserve!" Sarah warned, her eyes wide.
"He wants a war of attrition," I answered, leaning over the desk and picking up the silver coin. "I’m going to give him a massacre."
