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Chapter 6 - The Mistress's Golden Trap

While Whitmore Global plunged into financial chaos, Olivia Grant retreated to the private lounge of the Harvard Club to meet her covert financial backer—Richard Sterling, an estranged second cousin of the Vance dynasty who had spent a decade attempting to break into the Atlantic shipping syndicate.

“Did he sign?” Richard asked, sipping his double espresso.

“He will,” Olivia laughed, leaning back into the velvet booth. “The man’s ego is completely shattered. Emma walked out on him Friday night, and without her family’s silent subsidies, Whitmore Global is an empty shell. Once Nathan signs over his forty percent voting block to settle my debt claim, we execute the corporate merger and absorb the port leases under Grant-Sterling Holdings.”

“And what about Emma?” Richard inquired, his eyes narrowing. “Have you confirmed where she went?”

“Who cares about Emma?” Olivia dismissed with a flick of her hand. “She’s a broken housewife crying in some countryside cottage. She won't dare interfere with Wall Street institutions.”

Suddenly, the oak doors of the private dining room clicked open.

Two senior agents from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and two armed officers from the Federal Bureau of Investigation walked in, flanked by Douglas Vance, the chief corporate litigator for the Sterling Syndicate.

“Olivia Grant, Richard Sterling,” Douglas Vance announced, placing a red-jacketed federal warrant on their table.

Olivia gasped, spilling her coffee across the white linen. “What is the meaning of this? This is a private club!”

“This is an emergency federal seizure order issued by Chief Judge Alvarez of the Southern District of New York,” Douglas Vance stated calmly. “For the past six months, you and Mr. Richard Sterling have engaged in systematic insider trading, corporate espionage, and illegal short-selling manipulation of Whitmore Global stock using stolen port tariff data.”

Richard jumped to his feet. “You have no proof of that!”

Douglas tapped the tablet in his hands. A crystal-clear audio recording played through the speaker—capturing Olivia’s voice in a downtown hotel room detailing how she intended to seduce Nathan, leak his shipping manifests, and short his stock before the merger.

“Your encrypted cloud servers were seized forty minutes ago by federal cyber forensics,” Douglas said with cold satisfaction. “Every wire transfer, every burner phone message, and every illegal offshore options contract has been decrypted.”

Olivia turned pale, her manicured fingers trembling violently as the FBI agents stepped forward and clicked steel handcuffs around her wrists.

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“This is a setup!” Olivia shrieked, struggling against the agents as her designer handbag fell to the floor. “Nathan knew about these transactions!”

“Nathan was your pawn,” Douglas replied smoothly. “And you were playing checkers on a board owned entirely by Lady Emma Sterling.”

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