Chapter 110

Downtown.

On the top floor of one of the city's most exclusive hotels, a small gathering was underway in a private suite.

Crystal chandeliers cast warm light across the room, catching in glasses of Pétrus and turning the dark red wine almost jewel-like.

Several days had passed since Sterling Consortium circulated its formal notice withdrawing any implied backing from Victoria Sterling's new investments.

The announcement had caused a quiet stir in the upper levels of the business world. It had also spread quickly among the younger generation of wealthy families who moved in the same social circles.

Very little information had been made public, which only gave everyone more reason to speculate.

Tonight's gathering consisted almost entirely of people from that world.

One came from a family with major commercial real-estate holdings across several large U.S. cities. Another was the child of a hotel magnate whose brands operated in luxury destinations around the world. Someone else's family controlled a media empire with film studios, streaming platforms, and one of the country's most powerful talent-management companies.

They were wealthy, connected, and very good at pretending they weren't fishing for information.

Victoria sat among them.

She wore a sharply tailored suit, her makeup immaculate, her posture elegant and straight.

Her mood was considerably less polished.

She wasn't particularly close to anyone in the room. Most of them were relatively new acquaintances, people she had only gotten to know in recent years.

Several were far too socially calculating for her liking.

And tonight, their interest in her was obvious.

They wanted to know what had happened between her and Richard.

"Victoria, try this."

A young man with blond highlights swirled the wine in his glass.

"My father mentioned something interesting at dinner the other night. Apparently Mr. Sterling has been tightening compliance across the Consortium. Legal reviews, internal controls, the whole thing."

He smiled as though the next question had only just occurred to him.

"And then Sterling circulated that clarification about your new investments."

The conversation around them quieted slightly.

"I have to admit, we were all a little surprised. Everyone knows how much Richard has always looked out for you. Why make such a public distinction now?"

A young woman across from Victoria set down the pastry she had been eating.

"Exactly. Right now it's still mostly people in our circles talking about it. Give it another week and the financial gossip sites will start making up their own version."

Most outlets would think twice before speculating recklessly about Richard Sterling himself.

Victoria was another matter.

If people became convinced there was a genuine break between them, she knew perfectly well whose name would end up in the headlines.

The woman tilted her head.

"By the way, what happened with that cross-border clean-energy venture you were working on?"

Victoria felt the attention around the room settle on her.

She took a slow breath and ignored the dampness gathering in her palms.

Then she lifted her glass and took a small sip.

"You people hear one rumor and immediately write an entire family drama around it."

She set the glass down.

"You know what my father is like. He was trained by my grandfather from the time he was young. He's spent his entire life believing that people who grow up protected eventually become useless."

Victoria lifted her chin.

"That notice was a test."

Several people looked at one another.

"My father's point is simple. If I can't close a serious deal without using the Sterling name, why would anyone on the Consortium's board ever take me seriously in the future?"

Her tone became firmer as she continued.

"He removed the introductions, the relationships, and the assumption that Sterling would stand behind my projects because he wants me to prove I can succeed without them."

Victoria said it with absolute conviction.

Because she genuinely believed it.

Richard could be cold. Unreasonably cold, sometimes.

But as far as Victoria was concerned, he had never truly denied her anything important.

She rarely asked him for much in the first place. She had spent most of her childhood surrounded by people who handled whatever she needed, and she had never particularly enjoyed being around Richard.

Still, when she had accelerated through school, he had allowed it.

When she wanted to attend university here, he had arranged that too.

He had never interfered much with her life.

Not until Charlotte and Ryan.

And the more Victoria thought about what Richard had said afterward, the more convinced she became that she finally understood the real problem.

He thought her judgment was poor.

Charlotte and Ryan had both gotten themselves into serious trouble and relied on their families to clean it up. Worse, neither family had done a particularly good job of keeping the facts buried.

And Victoria had chosen to associate herself with both of them.

From Richard's perspective, wouldn't that make her look incompetent too?

Of course he was angry.

His standards for her had always been high.

So she would prove herself.

Once she produced results that even Richard couldn't dismiss, he would finally acknowledge her place in the Sterling family instead of keeping her at the edges of it.

Around her, several people exchanged glances.

Then someone laughed and raised his glass.

"I knew there had to be more to it."

The skepticism behind his smile was carefully hidden.

"So Richard's throwing you into the deep end. That makes more sense. The rest of us are still living off our families, and you're already being trained for the boardroom."

The young woman beside him laughed as well.

Victoria smiled and played along.

Inside, however, the anxiety remained.

Her explanation sounded good.

Reality was much less cooperative.

Without Sterling Consortium's implicit backing, several legitimate high-return projects she had been negotiating had stalled almost immediately.

What she needed now was a result large enough to force Richard—and perhaps even the Consortium's senior leadership—to acknowledge her.

And she needed it quickly.

That was the problem.

Victoria knew plenty of legitimate ways to build wealth.

None of them were fast enough.

The era when someone could stumble into an undeveloped market and build an empire before the rest of the world noticed was largely gone. Established industries were dominated by giants, while emerging sectors either had enormous barriers to entry or burned through capital at a terrifying rate.

Victoria had studied finance. She knew the models, the theories, the famous case studies.

Real markets were less cooperative.

Every attractive opportunity already had competitors circling it.

Unless an extraordinary opportunity simply fell into her lap—

or she somehow obtained information nobody else had.

And information was exactly what she lacked.

Victoria continued accepting toasts while quietly studying the people around her.

None of them were actually running their family empires.

Some had older siblings ahead of them in the succession line. Others had parents who were still relatively young and firmly in control.

But that didn't make them useless.

People like these heard things.

A careless complaint over dinner.

A parent's phone call overheard from the hallway.

A deal mentioned before someone realized who was listening.

Victoria began steering the conversation.

"Alex, hasn't your father been tied up with that development project down south lately?" she asked casually. "You look awfully miserable for someone whose family is supposed to be doing so well."

Alex had already had several glasses of wine.

He waved a hand.

"Don't remind me. He barely cares about real estate right now. He's obsessed with clean energy and advanced manufacturing."

He took another drink.

"You know Rynex Technologies?"

Victoria searched her memory.

A publicly traded technology manufacturer. Its stock had been languishing near multi-year lows for months.

"What about it?"

Alex leaned back into the sofa.

"I got up for water the other night and heard my father on the phone in his study. He was talking to someone in Washington."

Victoria's attention sharpened.

Alex lowered his voice.

"Apparently a major defense contractor is preparing to acquire Rynex early next year. Full takeover. From what I heard, they're planning to use the company as the platform for a much larger advanced-manufacturing division."

Victoria stopped moving.

Alex gave a frustrated laugh.

"Almost nobody knows yet. If that deal becomes public, Rynex is going to explode."

He shook his head.

"And naturally, my family can't touch it. We've got too much capital tied up in new developments. No liquidity when an opportunity finally shows up."

Acquisition.

Nonpublic information.

A major defense contractor.

A beaten-down public company.

The words landed one after another in Victoria's mind.

For several seconds, the conversation around her seemed to fade.

This was exactly what she had been waiting for.

Rynex's valuation was near its historical bottom.

If someone built a large position before the acquisition became public—

Then waited for the announcement—

The return could be enormous.

Enough, perhaps, to produce the kind of result she desperately needed.

But Victoria wasn't naïve.

She knew exactly what she had just heard.

If the acquisition was real, this was potentially material nonpublic information. Trading on it could expose her to serious legal consequences.

She couldn't simply buy the shares herself.

And whatever she did next, she couldn't afford to have it lead directly back to her.

Victoria lowered her eyes to the dark red wine in her glass.

The room around her was still filled with laughter.

No one seemed to realize that anything had changed.

But Victoria was no longer listening.

There had to be another way.