PART 3: TATAL LIQUIDATION
PART 3: TATAL LIQUIDATION
By 9:00 AM the next morning,
the financial markets opened,
and the execution began.
Chloe woke up to the sound of her phone exploding with notifications.
But they weren’t the views she wanted.
Her viral video had been re-uploaded by financial blogs with the headline:
The Prank That Cost A Forty-Million-Dollar Merger.
The comments were brutal.
Her followers were dropping by the thousands every minute.
She ran down to the living room of her family’s Upper East Side penthouse.
Her father was sitting on the couch,
his head in his hands,
surrounded by stacks of legal notices.
“Dad?
What’s happening?”
Chloe asked,
her voice trembling.
Arthur looked up,
his eyes bloodshot.
“We’re ruined,
Chloe.
The Vance Group pulled all their shipping contracts at 8:01 AM.
Without their volume,
our warehouses are empty.
The banks saw the news.
They just recalled our short-term lines of credit.
We have twenty-four hours to pay forty million dollars,
or the government seizes everything.”
“I’ll talk to him!
I’ll go to his office!”
Chloe screamed,
grabing her coat.
“You can’t even get into the building,”
a cold,
calm voice interrupted from the foyer.
Raymond,
Ethan’s chief counsel,
stepped into the living room,
flanked by two corporate movers holding clipboards.
He didn’t take off his hat.
He looked at the Mercers with a chilling indifference.
“Miss Mercer,”
Raymond said,
opening a leather folder.
“I am here on behalf of Vance Holding Corporation.
As of thirty minutes ago,
your family’s penthouse,
which was collateralized under the 2024 expansion loan from our firm,
is officially under foreclosure.
You have until noon to pack your personal belongings.”
“This is illegal!
Ethan can’t do this!”
Chloe yelled,
running toward Raymond,
her face distorted with ugly terror.
“It is entirely legal,
Miss Mercer,”
Raymond replied,
his voice flat,
mechanical.
“Your father signed the indemnity waiver last quarter.
You treated Mr. Vance like a prop for your digital audience.
You forgot that in the real world,
he is the apex predator of this market.”
Chloe fell to her knees on the expensive Persian rug.
The luxury lifestyle,
the high-society invitations,
the influencer fame—it was all evaporating before her eyes,
crushed under the iron boot of the man she had humiliated for a joke.
At the Vance International headquarters,
fifty floors above the city,
Ethan stood by the glass window,
drinking black coffee.
His new navy suit was flawless.
His face showed no signs of the previous night’s anger.
The television on the wall showed the plunging stock ticker of Mercer Logistics.
Raymond walked in,
bowing his head.
“The penthouse has been cleared,
sir.
The Mercer assets are currently being liquidated at auction.
The family is officially erased from the district.”
Ethan took a slow sip of his coffee.
He didn’t smile.
He didn’t celebrate.
The vengeance wasn’t emotional;
it was just business.
“Good,”
Ethan murmured,
turning back to his desk,
where a new billion-dollar tech acquisition contract was waiting for his signature.
May you like
“Let’s move on to the next play.
The Mercers are yesterday’s news.”
