Chapter 210: The Seven’s Choice

Chapter 210: Chapter 210: The Seven’s Choice

Inside the unfinished loft in Aurelia’s northern commercial district, the air was thick with the sharp scent of wet paint and stale coffee.

Three Bloomberg terminals sat on a heavy plywood sheet supported by metal sawhorses, their glowing screens casting a cold, blue light over the raw concrete floor. Strands of gray data cables snaked past unboxed monitor stands and empty cardboard boxes.

The room was dead silent except for the frantic, rhythmic clatter of computer mice and the heavy breathing of six young analysts.

Daphne Jin stood frozen behind Dult’s chair, her eyes glued to the spot gold chart. The historic sixty-pip red candle had already settled into a flat, horizontal crawl, but the shock of the move still hung in the air like smoke.

"He didn’t post," Dult whispered, his fingers trembling as he refreshed the LOOP portal for the twentieth time in two minutes. "The double-top cycle completed... and he didn’t drop a single entry coordinate."

Across the makeshift desk, Stephen slammed his open palm onto the plywood, making the monitor mounts rattle. "We sat on our hands! We literally sat here watching crude oil spreads while gold swept the high and dumped sixty pips! If we had just executed on the technical setup when the pattern formed, we’d be sitting on a clean twenty-percent return on our client portfolio!"

"Shut up, Stephen!" Daphne snapped, her voice cutting through the panic like a blade. She didn’t look back at him. Her gaze remained locked on the real-time comment section of Jake Rivers’ previous post, where millions of retail accounts were melting down in real time.

’Something’s wrong,’ Daphne thought, her mind working through the mechanical variables. ’Rivers doesn’t miss a double-top structure on gold. He doesn’t lag, and he doesn’t ignore a volatility sweep. He didn’t miss the trade... he just didn’t tell the public.’

Before anyone else could speak, all three Bloomberg terminals chimed in unison. A bright purple notification popped up across the sentiment filters.

"Jin!" Dult yelled, leaning so close to his screen his nose almost touched the glass. "He posted! New attachment!"

Daphne stepped over a coil of wire, leaning over Dult’s shoulder.

It wasn’t a signal. It was a pair of high-resolution images.

The first was a pristine institutional chart mapping out the exact entry vectors of the double-top move they had just watched unfold. The second was an official, stamped execution ledger directly from Sterling International Bank.

TOTAL GROSS PROFIT: +9,620,000,000 MARKS

FINAL ACCOUNT BALANCE: 32,420,000,000 MARKS

STATUS: EXECUTED & CLOSED

Above the attachments sat eleven words:

@JakeRivers_Official: Quite the downpour we had. Sadly, some people are against me sharing these with you guys. 🤫☔

Dult sucked in a sharp breath, his jaw dropping open. "Nine point six billion marks... in a single session. He traded it alone."

"Look at the caption, Dult," Daphne said, her voice dropping into a tight, quiet whisper as the realization hit her. "Read between the lines."

"He’s saying..." Stephen stammered, staring at his screen as the comment sections exploded into a wall of pure rage. "He’s saying someone forced him to stay quiet?"

"The state," Daphne murmured, a cold shiver running down her spine. "Reacher lost in court on Wednesday, so the ministries tried to muzzle his public feed behind closed doors to stop retail capital from fleeing state funds. Rivers didn’t just take the trade... he showed thirty million people the exact fortune the government kept out of their pockets."

A heavy, suffocating silence settled over the seven analysts as the reality of what they had missed truly sank in.

Dult stared blankly at his risk calculations, his stomach turning into a tight knot. ’Two slips,’ he thought, his chest tightening as he ran the numbers in his head. ’Two clean high-probability entry slips. Guaranteed setups. Both executed flawlessly by Rivers, and we hesitated on both because we were waiting for a notification like amateurs.’

Beside him, Stephen gripped the edge of the plywood desk so hard his knuckles turned white. ’We abandoned Vault Guard to build something real,’ Stephen raged internally, biting the inside of his cheek. ’We called ourselves analysts. If we had taken just half a position on those two slips, our boutique would have been funded for the next two years.’

Even quiet Bonnie, sitting at the far end of the desk, stared down at her hands, her eyes burning with bitter frustration. ’Two guaranteed slips,’ she thought, watching the green execution ledger mock them from the screen. ’A textbook sweep and a momentum continuation. Rivers saw them. He traded them. And someone stopped him from sharing them with us.’

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For the next two hours, the seven former Vault Guard analysts watched in awe as the narrative took hold. On their secondary screens, live news feeds showed angry crowds gathering outside the Ministry of Commerce. Public forums transformed into war zones, and retail traders began pulling billions of marks out of municipal funds in protest.

"It’s terrifying," Dult admitted quietly, rubbing his tired eyes as he watched Minister Troy Husks get swarmed by press crews on live TV. "He dropped eleven words and brought the entire Ministry of Commerce to its knees without filing a single lawsuit."

"It’s not terrifying," Daphne corrected, her eyes shining with a quiet, fierce intensity. "It’s absolute mastery. He built a public armor so thick that not even state ministers can touch him."

She turned back to her terminal, but before she could pull up the pre-market Asian session data, a heavy, deliberate knock echoed off the loft’s metal front door.

The sound was sharp and sudden. The tearing of tape and clicking of keyboards instantly stopped.

The seven analysts exchanged guarded, nervous glances. They were an unregistered boutique firm operating out of an unfinished commercial space. A visit from municipal inspectors or Vault Guard’s legal hounds right now would end their operation before it even started.

"Stay at your desks," Daphne ordered quietly. She wiped her hands on her trousers, walked across the bare concrete, and pulled the heavy door open.

Standing in the hallway was a tall woman in a crisp, dark navy trousersuit. She carried a sleek black leather briefcase, her posture perfectly composed, and behind her stood two broad-shouldered security personnel wearing immaculate, tailor-made dark grey suits.

The woman didn’t look like a government inspector, nor did she look like a corporate process server. She looked like money—the kind of old, quiet money that ran the capital’s private institutions.

"Daphne Jin?" the woman asked, her tone smooth, professional, and entirely devoid of hostility.

Daphne kept her hand firm on the edge of the door frame. "Who’s asking?"

The woman offered a polite, brief smile, reaching into her inner jacket pocket to pull out a pristine white card embossed with gold lettering. She extended it toward Daphne.

Daphne took the card and glanced down.

GOLDEN INVESTMENTS

Corporate Operations & Talent Acquisition

Daphne’s heart gave a sudden, violent thump against her ribs, but her face remained entirely impassive. She looked back up, her eyes narrowing slightly. "Golden Investments? What is a corporate representative doing at an unfinished loft in the northern district?"

"My name is Lorraine Clare," the woman replied easily, gesturing faintly toward the interior of the loft where six analysts were peering nervously over their monitor setups. "My office was instructed to conduct a private assessment of independent boutique desks in Aurelia. Specifically, desks that had the technical discipline to short gold and the discipline to stay out of the market when the liquidity depth showed an artificial trap."

Daphne’s breath hitched slightly. ’They know. They tracked our wallet routing.’

"May I come in?" Lorraine asked smoothly.

Daphne stepped aside, opening the door wider. "We’re still setting up."

Lorraine walked inside, her heels clicking crisply against the bare floor. She didn’t flinch at the smell of fresh paint or the exposed server wires. She walked slowly toward the center of the room, her sharp eyes taking in the three Bloomberg terminals, the makeshift plywood desk, and the tense expressions of the six junior analysts standing behind it.

"Not bad," Lorraine noted, stopping near Dult’s desk. "Minimal overhead, direct routing nodes, and high-spec hardware. You moved fast after leaving Vault Guard."

Stephen cleared his throat, taking a cautious step forward. "Did... did Mr. Rivers send you?"

Lorraine turned back to face the group, setting her leather briefcase down on the edge of the plywood sheet. "Mr. Rivers does not concern himself with minor desk logistics. However, his executive team pays very close attention to emerging talent that understands risk management."

She opened the briefcase, pulling out a thin stack of legal documents bound in dark leather folders.

"The public calls you ’The Rivers Seven,’" Lorraine said, a faint, knowing smile touching her lips. "They think you’re folk heroes because you took the opposite side of Crane’s analysis. But in the real market, folklore doesn’t pay for dedicated Bloomberg lines, institutional compliance defense, or prime clearing accounts."

She slid the folders across the plywood desk directly toward Daphne.

"Golden Investments is expanding its internal market analytics branch. We don’t need retail cheerleaders who blindly execute signal posts. We need disciplined analysts who can read liquidity depth, protect client capital, and operate quietly under pressure."

Daphne looked down at the leather folders, her pulse racing in her ears. "What are the terms?"

"A full institutional backing under the Golden Investments umbrella," Lorraine stated clearly. "Your desk receives direct clearing access through Sterling International Bank, complete legal insulation from Vault Guard’s non-compete clauses, and a dedicated seed allocation of fifty million marks to trade under our risk framework."

Dult let out a quiet, choked gasp. Stephen stared at the folders as if they were made of solid gold.

Across the table, Leo’s eyes went wide as he stared at the fifty-million-mark allocation figure. ’Fifty million...’ Leo thought, his hands trembling slightly on his desk. ’We were stressing over paying our Bloomberg terminal subscription next month, and now Golden Investments is handing us an institutional treasury. No more scrounging for retail clients. No more fear of Vault Guard’s lawsuits.’

Beside him, Hannah held her breath, her mind racing through the non-compete clause offer. ’Legal insulation through Sterling Bank and Golden Investments,’ she reflected, feeling a massive weight lift from her shoulders. ’Vault Guard can send all the cease-and-desist letters they want—they can’t touch an institutional desk backed by Rivers’ network.’

Daphne swallowed hard, maintaining her composure as she looked Lorraine straight in the eye. "And the catch?"

"You no longer trade for yourselves," Lorraine said, her voice dropping into a serious, uncompromising tone. "You trade for Golden Investments. You follow our risk parameters, you report directly to our operations desk, and your personal public feeds go completely dark. You become ghost analysts."

Silence settled over the raw loft. The six analysts behind Daphne looked at her, waiting for her lead. They had left Vault Guard to escape corporate control, but looking at the bleak reality of running an undercapitalized boutique in a district controlled by titans, the offer in front of them wasn’t a trap—it was an elevator to the top of the pyramid.

Daphne reached out, her fingers resting on the smooth leather cover of the top folder.

"We don’t need time to think about it," Daphne said, her voice steady and resolute. "Tell Golden Investments that the Seven are in."

Lorraine’s smile widened just a fraction. She snapped her briefcase shut. "Welcome to the winning side, Miss Jin. A transport team will arrive at four to move your hardware to Apex Plaza."

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