Chapter 234: The Last Twist Against Sterling

"$17 million!" Sterling barked out, slamming his paddle up with a white-knuckled grip, his breathing growing noticeably heavy.

I didn’t even flinch. I casually held up my paddle again, my voice smooth as silk. "$18 million."

A sharp, collective gasp echoed through the gallery. Sterling whipped his head back, glaring at me through his mask with pure, unadulterated venom. I just tilted my glass slightly and offered him a slow, mocking smile.

"$20 million!" Sterling snarled, his voice cracking slightly under the pressure.

"$21 million," I replied instantly, not a single drop of sweat on my brow.

The cat-and-mouse game stretched on, turning into a bloody financial spectacle. Sterling raised, I matched and raised. The price spiraled past $30 million, then $40 million—numbers that made zero sense for a single timepiece. Beside Sterling, his PA was practically hyperventilating, desperately pulling on his sleeve and whispering frantic warnings into his ear about corporate budget limits and board approvals.

Sterling was completely blinded by rage and ego, his face flushed deep red under his mask. He couldn’t stomach losing to a "nobodys" independent watchmaker.

"$60 MILLION!" Sterling roared into the auditorium, slamming his paddle down onto the back of the seat in front of him.

The hall fell into a suffocating, stunned silence. The auctioneer stared at Sterling, frozen with his mouth half-open. The PA looked like she was about to pass out on the spot.

I slowly lowered my paddle.

Instead of raising again, I set my glass down on the armrest, leaned back, and began to slowly clap. Clap... clap... clap.

"All yours, Sterling," I said quietly, my voice carrying clearly through the silent room.

I stood up, smoothed down the lapels of my tailored charcoal jacket, and turned my back on the stage. Without looking back once, I casually strolled toward the exit doors of the underground gallery.

Behind me, Sterling sat frozen in his seat, completely bewildered.

He looked from the podium to my retreating back, the cold realization slowly sinking into his head: he had just been tricked into spending $60 million of his company’s money on a watch piece that was completely useless without Mia’s untraceable tourbillon assembly—while I walked away without spending a single cent of my vault. And a masterplan cooking.

---

Sterling holding that piece after the auction was pure poetry. He was practically glowing with smug satisfaction, convinced he had just crushed a small-time watchmaker and secured the key to Sterling Co.’s future.

As he paraded out of the Bellevue Auction House clutching the velvet box, I met up with Chloe in the lobby. I glanced at her with a raised eyebrow, nonverbally asking if everything was set.

Chloe looked up from her tablet, a razor-sharp, victorious smile playing on her lips. "It’s done," she murmured softly. "The transfer went through five minutes ago. The board is assembled."

I smiled back. While Sterling was rushing straight to his corporate headquarters, desperate to get his engineers into the lab to rip Mia’s masterpiece apart, he had no idea the real trap was already sprung.

Sterling burst into the Sterling Co. executive board room, clutching the $60 million watch box like a trophy. "Call the technical leads!" he barked at his staff. "We dismantle this unit tonight! We reverse-engineer the tourbillon assembly before dawn!"

"Put the box down, Sterling," a cold voice interrupted from the head of the conference table.

Sterling froze. The entire executive board was already seated in dead silence.

"What is the meaning of this?" Sterling snapped, clutching the watch tightly to his chest. "I just secured the single most valuable horological asset on the market!"

"You just spent sixty million dollars of corporate capital on an unauthorized personal vendetta," the lead board member said flatly. "And as of five minutes ago, an emergency motion was passed by majority vote. You are stripped of executive authority over this piece. The company is officially revoking all rights and interest in Mia’s design."

"What?!" Sterling roared, his face turning pale as two corporate security guards stepped forward and calmly pulled the velvet box straight out of his hands. "You can’t do this! I am the head of this company! Who organized this?! Who unified you against me?!"

The heavy double doors of the board room swung open.

I walked in smoothly, dressed in my tailored charcoal suit, with Chloe stepping right beside me holding a stack of binding ownership documents.

"I did," I said calmly, my voice cutting through the panic in the room.

Sterling gasped, stumbling back a step as his eyes locked onto me. The realization hit him like a physical blow—the posture, the suit, the unmistakable presence.

"You..." Sterling stammered, pointing a trembling finger at me. "You... you were the one at the auction! It wasn’t Cornell!"

"You were playing checkers, Sterling," I said, offering him a cold, mocking smirk as I took my seat at the head of the board table. "I was playing chess. And I give the shots around here now. Through my vault at Hidden Gem, I quietly acquired the controlling majority stake in your company while you were busy ego-bidding in that underground gallery."

Chloe stepped forward, placing the official buyout and patent release contracts right in front of him. "Every action taken regarding Mia’s work is officially voided. Sterling Co. has surrendered all claims to her patents, and the original prototype is being returned to its rightful owner."

Mia—who had been waiting quietly near the doorway—stepped into the light. She looked at Sterling, her usual nervous energy replaced by quiet, triumphant pride as she watched her former corporate tormentor lose everything in a matter of seconds.

"You thought you could buy your way into genius, Sterling," I said softly, resting my chin on my hand as I looked down at him. "Turns out, you couldn’t even buy your own company."

I leaned back in the plush leather chair at the head of the boardroom table, steepling my fingers as I looked across at Sterling’s pale, defeated face before turning my eyes toward Mia.

"And one last piece of business," I announced, my voice echoing clearly off the glass walls. "As controlling majority shareholder of Sterling Co., I am immediately stripping Sterling of his title. Effective right now, Sterling Co. is being restructured under Hidden Gem, and executive creative control of the entire horology division is being handed over to Mia."

Silence fell over the room for a split second as the entire board bowed their heads in silent agreement.

Mia blinked, stepping back half a pace, her jaw practically dropping to the floor. She pointed a finger at her own chest, her eyes wide as saucers under her messy hair.

"Wait... really?!" she squeaked out, her voice cracking in utter disbelief. "Me?! Like... executive me? But—but my brain is always floating around! I drop my tweezers! I set brass housings on rolling edges!"

Chloe chuckled softly beside me, crossing her arms with a warm smile. "You won’t be handling corporate logistics alone, Mia. My team will manage the legal and administrative side. But as far as designs, patents, and horology standards go? Nobody touches a gear in this building without your approval."

Mia looked from Chloe to me, then over at Sterling—who looked like he had just swallowed pure poison—and finally down at her custom prototype watch sitting safely on the table.

A massive, beaming smile broke out across her face, cutting right through her usual nervous jittering.

"Oh my gosh..." Mia breathed out, a proud laugh bubbling up as she clutched her hands together. "We... we actually did it! I own his entire department!"