Chapter 3 - Panic in the Mansion
Back at the birthday celebration, the guests had slowly dispersed, sensing the heavy, suffocating tension that hung in the air after my sudden departure. Sarah had reappeared from the hallway, adjusting her designer dress, assuming her triumphant place beside Mark, expecting the coast to be clear.
Instead, she found Mark staring blankly at his glowing smartphone screen, his face drained of every drop of color.
"Mark? Where did Clara go? And why are the caterers looking at us like that?" Sarah asked, swirling her champagne flute with a dismissive smirk. "Honestly, good riddance. She was always too uptight anyway."
"Shut up, Sarah," Mark hissed, his voice trembling as he tapped frantically on his screen. "Just... shut your mouth."
Before Sarah could snap back, Mark’s phone rang. It was the Chief Financial Officer of NexusTech, screaming hysterically through the speakerphone.
"Mark! What the hell did you do?! The corporate accounts are locked! The payroll bounced! The institutional investors are pulling out every single dollar! The bank says our primary credit line has been completely revoked by Sterling Capital! We are facing bankruptcy within the hour!"
Mark’s knees buckled. He grabbed the edge of the mahogany dining table to steady himself, his phone slipping from his sweaty palm and clattering onto the marble floor.
"Sterling Capital..." Mark whispered, horror dawning on him like a physical blow.
He had known, vaguely, that my family had money. When we married five years ago, my father had gifted us a generous seed fund to launch his startup. Mark had always assumed that I was merely a wealthy benefactor’s daughter who had cut ties with her strict family to play domestic housewife. He had never bothered to look at the legal incorporation papers. He had never checked who actually owned the underlying patents, the real estate, or the venture capital trust holding the company's IP.
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I wasn't just a wealthy benefactor's daughter. I was the sole primary trustee and majority shareholder of Sterling Global Holdings.
"She owns it," Mark muttered, his eyes wide with stark terror as he looked at Sarah, who now looked pale and confused. "She owns all of it."
