Chapter 275: The Final Decision

Chapter 275: Chapter 275: The Final Decision

When the heavy doors swung open and Jake walked back into the boardroom alongside Sylvia Sheele, the atmosphere inside tightened to a suffocating pitch.

The Newmans looked up like condemned men watching the executioner return with the axe.

Jake walked smoothly to the head of the long table and pulled out the Chairman’s leather chair, taking his seat with absolute calmness. Sylvia took her position to his left, her expression completely smooth, devoid of the cold anger she had displayed earlier.

Silence stretched across the room, heavy and agonizing.

Jake leaned forward, resting his steepled fingers on the polished mahogany, looking directly at Richard Newman.

"It seems," Jake spoke softly, his low voice carrying into every corner of the silent room, "that the gods must be watching over the Newman family today. Because against my better judgment... it appears you won’t be wiped out entirely after all."

A collective, sharp gasp echoed across the Newman side of the table.

Troy’s bloodshot eyes snapped wide open. Richard’s head shot up, his hollowed face twitching as if he hadn’t heard correctly.

A sudden, dizzying ray of hope flared in their chests, so intense it made Ray Newman clutch his shirt over his heart.

"W-What...?" Richard rasped out, his cracked voice barely a whisper. "What do you mean, Mr. Rivers?"

"Miss Sheele and I have discussed her proposal," Jake said smoothly, his posture relaxed. "And from a purely rational business perspective, her idea of a joint restructuring contains certain... merits. I am willing to pause the secondary debt default notices."

Troy felt a surge of ecstatic relief flood his veins. We’re saved! he screamed internally, tears stinging his eyes. They’re going to restructure! We survive!

"However," Jake’s voice cut through Troy’s frantic thoughts like a sub-zero draft, "I cannot simply let the Newman family walk away scot-free after everything that has transpired. Actions have consequences."

The sudden shift made the Newmans almost puke blood. The emotional rollercoaster was so violent, so brutal, that Sam Newman grabbed his stomach, feeling genuinely nauseous.

Finn Newman squeezed his eyes shut, forcing down the surge of bile in his throat, before looking over at Sylvia Sheele.

"Miss Sheele..." Finn said, his voice trembling with desperation. "Please... what else is there that we can do to put this matter to rest? What do you want from us?"

Jake didn’t allow Sylvia to answer. He took over the floor smoothly, his dark gaze locking onto Finn.

"I have rephrased Miss Sheele’s joint proposal to better suit my standards," Jake declared flatly. "For this restructuring agreement to move forward, every single member of the Newman family will execute an immediate, irrevocable transfer of your entire remaining equity stake into our new joint holding firm."

"What?!" Troy shrieked, jumping out of his chair, his chair skittering backward against the floorboards. "Give up all our shares?! That’s everything we have left!"

"In return," Jake continued calmly, completely ignoring Troy’s outburst, "Golden Investments and the Sheele Group will absorb all personal debt guarantees tied to your names. Furthermore... we will leave the family with a total of five percent equity in the restructured entity—giving one percent to each of the five primary family members."

"One percent?!" Ray Newman blurted out, his mind frantically working through the numbers. He looked around the room, bewildered. "Wait... one percent for each of us?"

"That’s a insult!" Troy screamed, his face turning purple with rage as he slammed his fist onto the table. "You shorted our stock to the ground, you liquidated Logistics, and now you want us to hand over our stake for a lousy five percent crumbs?! We’d be completely stripped of operational control! We’d have nothing!"

"Think very carefully before you open your mouth again, Troy," Jake said, his voice dropping into a deep, dangerous register that chilled the blood in the room.

Jake’s face hardened into a stern, terrifying mask. He leaned over the table, his shadow looming large over the frantic young man.

"That one percent will be worth more than your entire ruined family legacy once Miss Sheele and I rebuild this company from the ground up," Jake said, his eyes narrowing into deadly slits. "Do you honestly think you have a choice here?"

He slammed his right palm onto the polished mahogany with a thunderous CRACK that echoed like a cannon shot through the boardroom. Everyone on the Newman side jumped violently in their seats.

"I am standing here, offering you an umbrella while your house is burning down!" Jake roared, his eyes blazing with ferocious authority. "I could dismantle the Newman Enterprise Group piece by piece before noon today! I could tear down every subsidiary, sell off your assets for scrap, and rebuild a new corporate entity from your ashes! It would take me a few extra weeks of paperwork, but I have billions of marks in cash to sit here and watch you rot in bankruptcy court!"

He stood up slightly, his terrifying aura suffocating the entire room.

"I am trying to help you stay relevant!" Jake sneered, his voice laced with absolute contempt. "I am giving you a lifeline so you don’t end up living on the streets, and you dare stand there and try to bargain for more?!"

Jake abruptly turned his head toward Sylvia, his face twisted into a look of deep frustration and annoyance.

"Miss Sheele," Jake said coldly, pulling out his phone. "It seems this cooperation will take a little longer than expected. Cancel the joint draft. Samuel, file the secondary default notices against their real estate arm immediately—"

"NO! WAIT! WE AGREE!"

Richard Newman screamed at the top of his lungs, his voice breaking entirely as he lunged forward across the table, his hands outstretched in absolute terror.

"We agree! We sign! Please, don’t trigger the defaults!" Richard gasped out, tears finally breaking past his weathered eyes and trailing down his deeply lined face. The last shred of his legendary corporate arrogance shattered into dust. He looked at Jake not as a rival, but as an omnipotent executioner holding their lives in his hands.

"Brother! You can’t!" Troy yelled frantically, grabbing Richard’s arm. "We can’t just give up our remaining equity. That is Father’s life work so how could we—"

SLAP!

A sharp, violent crack echoed through the boardroom.

Troy’s head snapped to the side, his cheek instantly blooming with a bright red handprint. He stumbled back into his chair, staring at his father in absolute shock and disbelief.

It was the first time in his entire life that Richard Newman had ever laid a hand on him.

"Shut your useless mouth!" Richard screamed at Troy, his body shaking violently with rage and despair, tears streaming down his face. "You dare to mention our father after all that you have done? Was destroying the entire company not enough for you?! You brought this demon to our doorstep, you ruined our cash reserves, and now you want the entire family to go down to the grave with you?!"

"Cash reserves?" Troy asked as he clutched his cheek, his eyes red. "You were the one who used the company reserves without clearance."

"Shut it!" Richard shouted and turned back to Jake, his shoulders slumping completely as he bowed his head in total submission. "We sign, Mr. Rivers... We hand over the thirty percent... Just... please... wipe the personal guarantees..."

"I agree as well," Mary Newman whispered softly, wiping her eyes with a trembling handkerchief.

Finn let out a long, shuddering sigh, closing his eyes in defeat. "I agree."

Ray Newman rapidly nodded his head, a strange, desperate excitement in his eyes. He had owned zero point one percent of the old company after contributing to the ten percent transfer; receiving a clean one percent in a massive, debt-free joint venture backed by Golden Investments and the Sheele Group was actually a massive upgrade for him. "I’m in! I’ll sign right now!"

Joe Dane sagged into his chair, nodding mutely. "I sign."

Troy clutched his burning cheek, looking around at his broken, weeping family. Seeing his father trembling in total defeat, the last remnants of Troy’s defiance collapsed. He dropped his head onto the table, sobbing softly. "...I agree..."

To the side, Sylvia Sheele sat back gracefully in her chair, watching the entire spectacle unfold with a look of intense, quiet satisfaction.

She looked at Jake, who stood at the head of the table like an absolute monarch commanding a room full of defeated men—men who were twice his age, yet looked like helpless children before his absolute power and overwhelming strategy.

He broke them completely, Sylvia thought, a dark, thrilling excitement fluttering in her chest as she watched Samuel Carter immediately begin handing out the surrender contracts. ’He took their empire, made them beg for crumbs, and turned an adversary into an obedient dog... All in less than an hour.’

Jake slowly sat back down in the Chairman’s seat, watching as the Newmans hastily grabbed pens, their hands shaking violently as they signed away their family’s legacy once and for all.

"Wise choice," Jake said softly, a cold, victorious smirk finally settling on his face.

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