Chapter 163. The CFO’s Betrayal

Jessica’s strategy was a whirlwind contained within the cottage’s stone walls. She worked the satellite phone like a conductor, orchestrating a symphony of legal filings, discreet media outreach, and financial counter-measures. The air crackled with the energy of a counter-offensive being born. The plan to publicly claim their relationship was no longer a hypothetical; it was a warhead being armed, its target the heart of Roland Cross’s narrative.

Anton and Sabatine worked alongside her, a united command. Anton dictated the core messaging—proud, unapologetic, pivoting from defense to a shared mission. Sabatine, using his intelligence contacts through Rico Nadir, compiled a devastating dossier linking Cross’s media appearances to the financial trails of the Volkov Consortium, painting him not as a patriot, but as a paid propagandist. They were constructing a truth more compelling than the lies.

For a few hours, there was a brutal, hopeful momentum.

It was shattered by a call from London. Not on the secure line, but on Anton’s publicly listed, long-silent office number. Jessica put it on speaker, her face pale.

“Anton? It’s David Cho.” The voice of the newly appointed, interim CFO—a man Anton had personally elevated after Evelyn’s arrest. He sounded harried, breathless. “I’m so sorry. I had no choice. They have my family.”

A cold fist clenched in Sabatine’s gut.

“Who has your family, David?” Anton’s voice was dangerously calm.

“I don’t know! Men… they took my wife and daughters from the school run this morning. They sent me photos. They said if I didn’t grant access to the Zürich liquidity reserves and the Asian hedge fund accounts by noon, they’d…” Cho’s voice broke into a sob. “I did it, Anton. I’m so sorry. I gave them the keys. They’re draining everything. Right now.”

The Zürich reserves. The lifeblood of the company’s operational liquidity. The Asian hedge funds, the strategic buffers against market shocks. The classified accounts only the CEO and CFO could access.

The empire wasn’t just teetering; its financial aorta had been severed.

Jessica swore softly, her hand flying to her temple. Anton closed his eyes, a wave of utter, visceral betrayal washing over his features. It was Evelyn’s crime, repeated, but this time with a cruelty that targeted not greed, but a man’s soul. They had learned from their mistakes. They weren’t recruiting traitors; they were manufacturing them.

“David, listen to me,” Anton said, his voice cutting through the man’s panic with sheer will. “Where are you?”

“A safe room. In the office. I locked myself in after… after I did it. But they have the codes now. They’re in the systems.”

“Stay there. Do not move. We’re sending security to you and to find your family. Do you hear me?”

A choked affirmation before the line went dead.

The cottage, moments ago a hive of strategic planning, was now a tomb. The fire seemed to gutter. The howl of the wind was the sound of money—billions of dollars—bleeding out into digital oblivion.

“They’ve moved past trying to frame you,” Sabatine said, the analytical part of his brain still functioning amidst the shock. “They’re executing a hostile takeover via asset strip. They’re making the company worthless, so your allies desert you, and then they pick up the carcass for pennies. Or they force you to surrender control to stop the bleeding.”

Anton was staring at the dead phone in Jessica’s hand as if it were a venomous snake. His face was bloodless. “Cho… he has twin girls. Seven years old.” The personal detail was a knife twist. This wasn’t just business. It was carnage.

Jessica was already typing furiously, pulling up real-time financial feeds. “The Zürich transfers are live. I’m seeing them. They’re routing through a cascade of crypto mixers. We can’t freeze them in time. The Asian funds… they’re being liquidated. The market is starting to react.” She looked up, her professional mask utterly gone, replaced by naked dread. “Anton, without those reserves, we can’t meet payroll in forty-eight hours. We can’t service debt. The company will be insolvent by the end of the week.”

The avalanche of lies had been followed by a tsunami of theft. Roland Cross’s narrative had provided the smoke; this was the fire, consuming the foundations.

Anton sank into a chair by the fireplace, the weight of it finally, physically pressing him down. He looked at Sabatine, and in his eyes was a despair deeper than any caused by fake audio. This was real. This was the legacy of his father, the work of his life, the livelihoods of tens of thousands, being evaporated before his eyes. And it was being done by torturing an innocent man.

“I have to go back,” he said, his voice hollow. “I have to face the board. I have to try to stop the haemorrhage, find Cho’s family, and somehow hold it together.”

“It’s a trap,” Sabatine said immediately, stepping forward. “They forced Cho’s hand to get the money, yes. But they also did it to pull you out of hiding. To make you come to London. They’ll be waiting. It won’t be a boardroom. It’ll be an ambush.”

“I don’t have a choice!” Anton exploded, surging to his feet. The controlled fury was back, white-hot and desperate. “I can’t let those girls be harmed because of my company! I can’t sit here while everything collapses! This is my responsibility!”

“And you think it’s not mine?” Sabatine’s own voice rose, not in anger, but in fierce, defiant challenge. He moved into Anton’s space, forcing him to look at him. “You think because I didn’t sign the articles of incorporation, that I’m not bound to this? To you?” He gestured wildly at the laptops, the plans, the cottage that held their fragile peace. “You built an empire. I found a home. In you. That’s my stake. That’s my account they’re trying to drain.”

Anton stared at him, chest heaving.

Sabatine’s voice dropped, intense, unwavering. “You are not falling alone, Anton. Not while I’m standing. You go to London to play the CEO and save the company? Fine. But I’m not your bodyguard on that trip. I’m your partner. We walked into that boardroom together. We face the ambush together. We find Cho’s family together. You want to take responsibility? Then share it. Let me carry this with you.”

He was refusing the old dynamic, the one where Anton bore the weight and Sabatine watched the shadows. He was demanding a merger, not of companies, but of burdens.

Jessica watched, breath held. This was the crucible. The CFO’s betrayal was the test. Would they fracture under the pressure, or fuse?

Anton’s gaze searched Sabatine’s face, looking for doubt, for hesitation. He found only a steely, stubborn love, a loyalty that viewed the crumbling empire not as a reason to flee, but as a shared problem to solve.

The defiance in Anton’s eyes didn’t fade, but it changed. The solitary, Atlas-like determination softened at the edges, allowing in the possibility of a shared load. The idea that he didn’t have to stand alone in the ruins was a revolutionary, terrifying comfort.

He reached out, his hand gripping Sabatine’s forearm, hard. “It will be ugly. They will come for you twice as hard. They’ll say you’re the reason for all of it.”

A ghost of Sabatine’s old, grim smile touched his lips. “Let them try. I’m harder to break than a bank transfer.”

A decision passed between them, silent and absolute.

Anton turned to Jessica, his voice regaining its command, but now it was a shared command. “Jessica, we’re coming to London. We’ll need a war room, not the Ice Gallery. Somewhere secure. And we need every favour we’re owed with MI5 and Interpol. Finding Cho’s family is the priority. We get them back, we get Cho back, we have a witness and we cut off their leverage.”

He looked back at Sabatine. “We’ll expose the theft, trace the money, and use it as proof of the larger conspiracy. We turn their financial attack into evidence.”

Sabatine nodded. “I’ll work with Leon and Nadir. We’ll hunt the digital footprints of the transfers in real-time. Even through mixers, there’s a latency, a trail. We find the endpoint, we find who’s behind this.”

The momentum was back, but it was different. It wasn’t Anton leading and Sabatine guarding. It was a pincer movement. Anton would fight the public, corporate fire with law and authority. Sabatine would fight the shadow war, tracking the money and the men.

Jessica looked from one to the other, a flicker of hope reigniting in her exhausted eyes. The CFO’s betrayal was a catastrophe. But in its wake, the two men in front of her had not broken apart; they had locked together, stronger. They were no longer a billionaire and his protector. They were a single, formidable entity.

“I’ll make the arrangements,” she said, a new respect in her voice. She picked up the satellite phone. “Leon! We’re moving. Prepare for a hot re-entry.”

As she began barking orders, Anton’s hand slid down Sabatine’s arm to clasp his hand. The grip was tight, an anchor in the new storm.

“Together,” Anton murmured, the word a vow for the battle ahead.

Sabatine squeezed back. “Always.”

The empire was teetering. But its heart, they now knew, was not in its bank accounts. It was in the joined hands of two men in a windswept cottage, refusing to let each other fall.

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