Chapter 20 - The Unwritten Horizon
|
The heavy library went completely silent, save for the crackle of the wood fire in the hearth.
Victor von Brandt stared at the blue folder sitting on his desk as if it were a ticking bomb. The absolute power he had wielded for decades had suddenly dissolved in front of a former Chicago CEO and a woman who used to clean hotel rooms.
"What do you want, Mercer?" von Brandt asked, his voice dropping into a low, deadly whisper.
"Simple," I said, standing up from the leather chair and buttoning my tuxedo jacket. "Titan Holdings will publicly divest from all North American energy holdings by Friday. You will never approach Mercer Dynamics, my staff, or my family ever again."
Von Brandt looked up at me, his gray eyes burning with suppressed rage. "And if I refuse?"
"Then at 9:00 AM tomorrow," David Vance said with a thin smile, "these files will be delivered simultaneously to the Swiss Federal Prosecutor, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the Wall Street Journal."
Von Brandt sat motionless for five long seconds. Slowly, agonizingly, he reached out his hand, pulled the blue folder toward himself, and closed it.
"You win this round, Mr. Mercer," von Brandt said, his voice flat and cold. "Get out of my house."
I didn't say another word. I turned on my heel, and together with Elena and David, walked out of the library, through the grand marble hallways, and out into the crisp Swiss night air.
As our town car glided away from the fortress on Lake Geneva, the moon reflected off the dark water below.
Elena looked out the window, a soft smile on her face. "Is it over, Ethan?"
I looked at my phone. A text message popped up from Maya back in Chicago: Stock price just hit an all-time high. Welcome back, CEO.
I looked at Elena, then out at the endless horizon stretched across the dark lake.
May you like
"The war with Titan is over, Elena," I said softly, as my phone suddenly buzzed with an incoming call from an unlisted international number from Tokyo.
I picked up the call, setting it to my ear as the car sped down the mountain road into the unknown future.
