Chapter 17 - Victoria’s Countermove
While federal marshals escorted Marcus Sterling out of Meridian Tower in handcuffs, Victoria Vance was already making her move across the Atlantic. In a coordinated media blitz broadcast live from London, Victoria announced a hostile counter-acquisition bid backed by a consortium of European hedge funds, attempting to devalue Vela Dynamics’ stock through a massive coordinated short-selling campaign.
Arthur Bennett rushed into my office holding a tablet streaming live financial news. “Evelyn! Look at the pre-market exchange! Victoria Vance is dumping millions of synthetic shares onto the London stock exchange! Our share price is dropping by eight percent every ten minutes!”
I didn't panic. I watched the flickering green and red numbers on my dual monitors with absolute calm. “She’s trying to force a liquidity panic, Arthur. She thinks we’ll drain our cash reserves trying to buy back our own stock.”
“And will we?” Arthur asked anxiously.
“No,” I said, typing a rapid series of commands into my encrypted terminal. “We’re going to let her overextend.”
I turned to Marcus Vance, who was typing furiously on his secondary station. “Marcus, execute Protocol Phoenix.”
Marcus grinned wickedly. “Executing now. All algorithmic buy-walls have been withdrawn. Victoria’s syndicate is swimming in an empty pool of synthetic shares.”
For three agonizing hours, our stock price took a heavy beating on international exchanges. Financial news anchors declared that Vela Dynamics was facing an unprecedented liquidity crisis, predicting our imminent collapse. Victoria Vance even posted a gloating video message on professional networks, claiming that my reign as a billionaire tech mogul was coming to a crashing end.
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At precisely 1:00 PM, when Victoria’s syndicate had committed ninety percent of their capital to shorting our stock, I pushed the execute button on my terminal.
“Trap sprung,” I whispered.
