Chapter 281: Roadblock

Chapter 281: Chapter 281: Roadblock

The morning sun filtered through the sheer curtains of Jake’s luxury apartment high above Veyra, casting long, pale shadows across the minimalist hardwood floor.

Jake sat at the glass dining table, dressed in a comfortable dark grey crewneck and black lounge pants, sharing breakfast with his girlfriend, Catharine. Across from him, Catharine finished the last bite of her toast and glanced at the sleek watch on her wrist, her tailored blazer draped neatly over the adjacent chair.

"I need to head out soon," Catharine said, taking a sip of her coffee before standing up and smoothing down her skirt. "The morning briefing at the firm starts at nine sharp, and I cannot afford to be late today."

Jake looked up, a faint smile touching his lips as he set down his mug. "Take it easy today. You’ve been working yourself into the ground all week."

"Easy is not a word in our vocabulary, Jake," Catharine teased softly, leaning over to press a quick kiss to his cheek. "Have a productive day."

"Actually, I think I’ll take a break and work from home today," Jake replied, leaning back in his chair. "There’s nothing urgent at the moment."

Catharine paused, her expression softening as she looked down at him with genuine warmth. "You should. You’ve been running yourself ragged with these corporate takeovers these past few days, Jake. You more than deserve some rest."

Catharine offered a final reassuring smile, grabbed her handbag, and walked toward the entryway. Just as she opened the front door to step out into the hallway, she crossed paths with Alice, who was standing there with her tablet in hand, right on the dot for her morning arrival.

"Morning, Catharine," Alice greeted politely, stepping aside to let her pass.

"Morning, Alice," Catharine replied with a quick nod before heading down to the elevators.

Alice stepped into the apartment, the door clicking shut behind her. She walked over to the dining table where Jake was finishing his coffee, her expression all business.

"Good morning, Mr. Rivers," Alice said, pulling up her digital schedule. "The pre-bidding registrations for tomorrow night’s gallery auction have crossed twelve million marks in preliminary deposits alone. Also, the two classic sports cars you bid on at the recent auction arrived yesterday and have already cleared customs."

Jake nodded, gesturing toward the living room. "Good. Have them delivered straight here to my residence garage." 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ

"Will do," Alice replied, tapping the screen. She paused for a fraction of a second, her eyes scanning her notes.

"Remind me again, how much did this penthouse cost when we acquired it?" Jake asked as he looked around the Zenith.

Alice blinked at the sudden question, though her professional composure didn’t slip. "The Zenith residence cost 9.8 million marks, Mr. Rivers."

As the figure left her lips, Alice’s mind drifted backward for a brief, quiet moment to the day she had first met him. She remembered standing in that exact same empty property as the real estate agent who had sold him this very penthouse. At the time, Jake hadn’t even owned an office or a registered company, yet he had casually offered her a position as his private secretary.

’If I hadn’t taken that leap of faith back then and chosen to trust him,’ Alice thought, a subtle sense of awe washing over her, ’I wouldn’t be standing here today.’

Back then, she was just an ordinary sales agent trying to hit sales quotas. Now, CEOs of multi-billion mark conglomerates treated her with cautious, deferential respect simply because she spoke on behalf of Jake Rivers.

"I think it’s time now," Jake interrupted her thoughts, looking around the spacious living room with a thoughtful frown. "I should probably look into moving to a house with a bigger garage. Two cars are already pushing it if I plan on expanding the collection."

Alice blinked, snapping back to the present moment. "I can have our real estate acquisition team compile a portfolio of private estates with subterranean parking structures by the end of the week."

"Do that," Jake said, standing up from the table. He walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the city before turning back to her. "Put Mason Grant on the line for me."

Alice raised an eyebrow, quickly navigating her tablet to patch the call through. "Mason Grant? The General Manager of the Meridian Crown?"

"The very same," Jake said casually.

Within seconds, the secure audio routed through the apartment’s integrated sound system, and the heavy, slightly nervous voice of the general manager filled the room.

"Mr. Rivers," Mason answered promptly, his tone laced with immediate, rigid deference and a thin layer of underlying tension. "Good morning. To what do I owe the call?"

"Good morning, Mason," Jake said smoothly, walking toward the kitchen island. "I’m calling about the Meridian Crown restaurant. There’s a private VIP booth booked for tomorrow evening under a high school class reunion."

On the other end of the line, Mason paused, frantically mentally reviewing the reservation logs while trying to steady his breathing. "Ah, yes. A private party organized by a client named Alan. Everything is set according to their requested specifications."

"Keep the booking exactly as it is," Jake instructed, a sharp, amused edge to his voice. "In fact, I want you to ensure that particular booth receives absolute top-tier, white-glove service. Make sure the manager on duty makes their presence known. I want those specific guests to feel thoroughly... pampered."

Mason hesitated for a fraction of a second, gripping his phone tightly. "Will you be attending the gathering yourself, sir? I want to ensure your own table is prepared if you decide to drop by."

"No, I won’t be attending," Jake replied dryly. "It’s not my reunion. But if anyone at that table asks why they’re receiving such treatment, the floor manager is authorized to inform them that the special arrangements were ordered directly by Jake Rivers himself."

Mason swallowed hard, committing the instruction to memory. "Understood, Mr. Rivers. I will personally brief the evening floor manager to treat that table like royalty."

"Good," Jake said, cutting the call short with a tap of his finger.

Alice watched him, her expression neutral. She didn’t know anything about a family dinner, nor did she know about Aliya’s encounter with her old high school classmates. To her, it was just another inexplicable directive from her boss.

"Will Miss Catharine be attending tomorrow night’s auction with you so that I can finalize the seating arrangements and security clearance?" Alice asked, her fingers hovering over her tablet.

"Yes, she’ll be coming," Jake confirmed, a faint nod of approval touching his features. "Include her in all the VIP protocols."

"Understood," Alice said, making the adjustment. "Should I make any other adjustments to tomorrow night’s schedule?"

"No," Jake smiled faintly, walking back toward his desk. "Just let the show play out."

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The afternoon sun beat down through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows of the executive suite, casting long, sharp shadows across the polished white marble.

Anthony Paige stood with his hands tucked into the pockets of his tailored trousers, looking out over the sprawling skyline of Aurelia. A crystal tumbler of unadorned water sat forgotten on the glass desk behind him. His mind was drifting back over the past few weeks, tallying up the pieces of his father’s grand regional expansion plan. Everything was falling precisely into place. The local permits had cleared, the initial logistics were secured, and the groundwork for Paige Financial Group’s northern energy corridors was moving ahead without a single hitch.

A confident, ambitious smile touched Anthony’s lips. ’Let my brothers scheme all they want back in London,’ he thought, narrowing his eyes as he watched the distant traffic crawl along the highway. ’Once this regional expansion is successfully finalized and cemented under my name, father won’t have a choice. The succession will be settled, and those fools won’t have a shred of leverage left to challenge the throne.’

The sharp, sudden rap of knuckles against the heavy mahogany door broke his train of thought.

"Come in," Anthony called out, not bothering to turn around.

The door pushed open, and his senior local assistant stepped into the room, holding a tablet pressed tightly against his chest. The man’s face was pale, a thin layer of nervous sweat shining across his forehead—the exact same look of dread Anthony had seen on Luke and John back at The Velvet Vault.

Anthony turned around, raising an eyebrow at the assistant’s tense posture. "What is it? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost."

"Mr. Paige," the assistant began, his voice tight and breathless. "We’ve... we’ve encountered a massive roadblock on the northern project."

Anthony’s smile faltered, replaced instantly by a frown of cold disbelief. He crossed his arms, stepping away from the window. "A roadblock? That’s impossible. Every single preliminary hurdle was cleared days ago. What could have possibly gone wrong when everything was proceeding so smoothly?"

The assistant swallowed hard, gripping the edges of his tablet. "It’s the capital channels, sir. The primary financial conduit we were using to funnel and clear our overseas funds into the northern infrastructure..." He paused, hesitating as if speaking the name would summon a curse. "...we were routing everything through the Newman Enterprise Group."

Hearing that specific name, Anthony froze.

The pieces clicked together in his mind with terrifying speed. The financial news cycles, the sudden dismantling of a forty-year dynasty, the corporate execution that had entirely rewritten Veyra’s economy in less than a week—all of it belonged to a single name.

Jake Rivers.

Anthony’s jaw tightened. The realization hit him like a physical blow. By absorbing Newman Enterprise Group into Golden Sheele Corp, Jake hadn’t just acquired a multi-billion mark titan; he had effectively locked down every single proprietary transit and capital-clearing route the Newmans controlled. And Paige Financial’s entire northern project depended entirely on those exact hidden corridors to move its funds.

If they didn’t secure clearance through Jake’s newly consolidated holding structure, their capital was trapped. The entire project would grind to an absolute halt before it even broke ground.

"Bloody hell," Anthony muttered under his breath, a flash of frustration cutting through his composure.

He remembered the encounter at The Velvet Vault weeks ago. He remembered the quiet, terrifying calm radiating from Jake’s VIP booth, and the sheer awe with which the local elites spoke of him. At the time, Anthony had dismissed it as the small-pond paranoia of regional players. Now, that same pond was about to drown him.

Anthony exhaled slowly, rubbing the bridge of his nose as his strategic mind scrambled for a pivot. If the Newman conduits were locked under Jake’s authority, then brute force or foreign pressure wouldn’t work here. They needed cooperation.

"Alright," Anthony said, his voice dropping into a calculated, pragmatic tone. "Listen to me. I’ve actually met Jake Rivers before. Brief, but it happened. I’ll go see him personally, try to feel him out, and see if he’s willing to look the other way and allow us to keep channeling our capital through his newly acquired network."

The assistant’s eyes widened in alarm, and he stepped forward, holding a hand out in warning. "Sir, with all due respect... you shouldn’t underestimate Jake Rivers. The man dismantled a forty-year empire in five business days. If you walk in there thinking you can casually negotiate—"

Anthony cut him off with a sharp wave of his hand, a disdainful smirk returning to his lips. He walked back to his desk, looking down at his assistant with absolute condescension.

"Relax," Anthony scoffed, his British accent dripping with unshakeable arrogance. "Veyra is nothing in the grand scheme of global capital. What are we afraid of? Jake Rivers is merely an impressive fish in a very tiny pond. He may rule this little region, but he has no idea how vast the real ocean is, nor what kind of capital backs my family."

The assistant bit his lower lip, knowing better than to argue further against Anthony’s entrenched ego.

"Understood, Mr. Paige," the assistant murmured, keeping his gaze lowered. "Shall I arrange the outreach?"

"Book a meeting with him," Anthony instructed sharply, turning back to look out the window. "Let’s see what the ’monarch of Veyra’ has to say when someone from Mayfair comes knocking on his door."

The assistant gave a stiff, formal bow, turned on his heel, and walked out of the executive suite, leaving Anthony alone in the silence of the sunlit room, blissfully unaware of just how deep the so called ocean actually was.

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