Chapter 2 - The Panic Room of SuccessThe vibration in Dominic’s pocket turned from a buzz to a frantic, unbroken pulse.
He frowned, his hand slipping away from Lauren’s hip as he reached into his jacket. He pulled out the phone, expecting a text from the chief financial officer confirming that the Series B paperwork had cleared, or perhaps an alert that Bloomberg had picked up the live stream.
Instead, his screen was locked in a violent loop of red banner notifications.
CRITICAL ALERT: PRIMARY LIQUIDITY WITHDRAWN.
ACCOUNT BALANCE: $412.50.
ESCROW TRANSFER: $30,000,000.00 EXECUTED TO INDEPENDENT CUSTODIAN.
Dominic blinked. The warm, golden lights of the museum seemed to stutter. He tapped the screen, his thumb slick with sudden sweat. He refreshed the app. The numbers didn't change. Thirty million dollars—the entirety of the Whitlock family reserve that had been sitting in the corporate-linked holding account as collateral for their government grants—was gone.
“Dominic?” Lauren murmured, her smile faltering as she noticed the sudden gray pallor spreading across his cheeks. “What is it? The press?”
“Shut up,” Dominic breathed, his voice dropping out of the microphone’s range, though the speakers still hummed with the ambient feedback of his open mic.
He looked out over the crowd.
Marin was halfway to the glass doors. The black satin of her dress cut a sharp, uncompromising line through the sea of confused investors and murmuring journalists. People were standing up now, not to applaud, but because they had seen the look on Dominic’s face—the look of a man standing on a glass floor that had just shattered.
“Wait,” Dominic gasped into the microphone, his voice cracking with sudden, unmanaged terror. “Marin—wait!”
The sound bounced off the marble pillars. Four hundred heads whipped around.
Marin did not stop walking. Her heels clicked against the polished floor with rhythmic, metronomic precision. Clack. Clack. Clack. Every step felt like a gavel coming down in an empty courtroom.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Dominic shouted, his professional facade dissolving into a jagged, desperate shriek as he abandoned the podium and bolted down the metal steps of the stage, nearly tripping over his own patent-leather shoes. “Please—technical difficulty—just a brief intermission—!”
Julian Vance stood up from table one, buttoning his jacket with slow, deliberate care. He looked at the trembling prototype battery glowing blue behind the champagne bar, then at Dominic, who was now shoving his way past a group of bewildered city council members.
“Mr. Cross,” Julian said, his voice cutting through the rising panic like a scalpel. “Before you chase your wife, you might want to check who owns the patent rights to the electrolyte gel inside that blue prototype behind you.”
Dominic froze mid-stride.
May you like
The blood drained entirely from his face. The electrolyte gel patent hadn't been filed under Aurelis Grid.
It had been filed under Whitlock Holdings.
