Chapter 241: The Lost Fortune

Morning rent brutally. Pewter gray engulfed Blackwood house in a stifling pall that would not breathe, as if it knew what was to be rent asunder.Sam Blackwood sat at the head of his own boardroom in the east wing, black coffee to one side, iced. The accountants and advisors arrived separately, each carrying a laptop, a tablet, and stacks of paper, They arrived silently, their din subdued, wincing."Sir… there has been a complication."Samuel didn't even glance up. Fingers tapped once over impossibly highly lacquered mahogany. "Complication," he growled, low and as cold as a sword in its sheath. "Or incompetence?"Samuel's finance director, a man of seventeen years with Samuel, swallowed hard. His hands shook as he put a tablet on the desk before Samuel. A screen glowed brightly. Columns of figures marched before it. Balance sheets. Transaction accounts."Gone, sir. Aurelio account. Two hundred and fifty million. Burned, stacked, diverted… gone. No trailable end. All wires to a vacuum

Last Updated : 2025-10-14

Chapter 242: The Black Ledger

Night hung outside, but Shayla Anderson did not sleep. Her desk was a war zone of papers and sheets scattered here and there, encrypted disks, burners, and an otherworldly blue glow on the LCD screen. Darkly smoking, only one desk lamp still lit, casting sharp shadows down her cheeks.Every keystroke was deliberate. Every question led her deeper into Samuel Blackwood's world of darkness.Sham sales in the form of "shipping manifests" managed gunrunning. Wire transfers in pyramids of shell corporations gulped money laundering. Imported drugs, diverted and counterfeited, exposed drug trafficking loops reaching three continents.It wasn't corruption. It was a crime kingdom.And Shayla wore its crown tonight.She compiled what she called The Black Ledger — a computerized and handwritten account of Samuel's misbehavior. Each transaction, each borrowed name, every foreign bank account, copied by hand, counted, and stored. A copy was encrypted on discs and stored in safe deposit boxes under

Last Updated : 2025-10-17

Chapter 243: Seeds of Sabotage

The city was never asleep, and neither was Shayla Anderson. She had a vile tiny coffeehouse on the edge of downtown, her eyes darting back and forth between the door and the fellow standing in front of her at the table. He shifted awkwardly, tapping the fingers of one hand on the cup of coffee with an irritable finger, a sweat bead on his forehead for all the chill outside. "Your business trucks for him," Shayla said, a block of ice floating over her sugary voice. "You've heard what kind of goods pass through his piers. Machine guns loaded into agri-ware. Stolen stock posing as hospital supplies. And you know him." His Adam's apple bobbed once, twice, in the man's throat, "When Samuel Blackwood learns I'm talking— "He won't," Shayla cut in, her eyes on his, chin thrust forward. "You'll never get me to say my name once tonight. Information is what I'm looking for. Travel reservations, deals, pictures. Off the books, and below the radar. And for something." She slid a black envelop

Last Updated : 2025-10-19

Chapter 244: The Fissures of the Empire

They start small, hairline fractures in glass. That one delayed shipment there, that rogue contract somewhere else. Samuel had initially written them off as infuriating delays, the price of being a ridiculously awesome empire. And then the landslide — one deal falling, then another, then another, falling in slow, agonizing beat like dominoes. --- There is no low to which the universe will sink in attempting to probe a human. Tampered Blackwood shipping containers on the docks were found. Contents, in millions at a time, vanished into thin air. Hollywood business partners from company offices welshed on deals due to "lost confidence" and "better offers" with other firms who, very conveniently, possessed Blackwood's proprietary blueprints and price lists. Samuel seethed. He cashiered the executives. He bullied the suppliers. He doubled his guards and insisted on executive vows of loyalty. But losses just kept mounting. --- Prowling under the cover of night, Shayla worked the math

Last Updated : 2025-10-20

Chapter 245: Tempests Within the Law

It happened at dawn. Headlines boomed through all the business sections of financial news, all the business sections of news, all the marquee-lit scrolls: "Blackwood Conglomerate Sued for Multi-Billion Dollars." "Government Official Investigation of Blackwood Enterprises." "Supply Chain Collapse That Defines Blackwood World Ablaze." The smoke-and-mirrors deception Samuel had built came crashing down. ------- By mid-morning, the Blackwood building was jammed to the ceiling with reporters, lawyers, and government officials, Suits poured in by angry partners, mourning for damages for "sabotaged contracts" and "disclosures of trade secrets." Subpoenas were being served before examiners. Auditors poured into offices. And high above it all, bleeding on all sides, stubborn, but howling, was Samuel Blackwood. At home, his bellows awakened from the halls. "Do they expect to try my good name?" Samuel flung a decanter into the flames, and shattered bits of it shone on the mar