Mass release coming on the 23rd...
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Samuel Carter picked up the freshly drafted executive and legal templates, organizing them neatly into a stack before sliding them into his leather briefcase. The brass latches locked with two sharp clicks.
Before Samuel could stand, the loud buzz of Jake’s phone broke the quiet in the boardroom.
Jake reached into his pocket and looked down at the screen. "Excuse , Samuel. I need to take this."
"It’s quite alright," Samuel said, lifting his cane and stepping back from the table. "I was just about to head out anyway. We’ll have these templates finalized and ready for when you begin hiring the core team." He gave a brief nod and walked out of the room, closing the heavy door behind him.
Jake slid his thumb across the screen and brought the phone to his ear. "Catharine."
"I did it, Jake," she said. Her voice was fast and breathless, completely missing the quiet, hesitant tone she usually had at her office. "It went down exactly the way we talked about. The numbers didn’t lie, and Henderson couldn’t talk his way out of it."
Jake leaned back in his leather chair. "What happened?"
"Henderson tried to bury a forty-two-million-mark expense in the Infrastructure Fund ledger to make our liquidity look better for the board," she explained, the words rushing out. "It was listed as a pre-paid procurent for northern steel, but the trade routes were frozen yesterday. When I told him about it privately, he didn’t even look up. He threw the paper back at and yelled loud enough for the whole bullpen to hear. He told I was fresh out of university, looking for ghosts, and that I needed to stick to basic data entry."
Jake looked down at his desk, his fingers tracing the edge of his notebook. "But you didn’t delete the file, did you?"
"No. I left his data exactly as it was on the shared server," Catharine said, and Jake could hear the satisfaction in her voice. "But I opened the file’s tadata and embedded a Correction Note right there. I moved the forty-two million into a Restricted Escrow column and attached the official trade freeze notice as a reference. At three-thirty, Elena Henry pulled up the final report before going into the board eting."
She paused, taking a quick breath. "She called into her office. Henderson followed in, smiling, completely convinced I was getting fired for causing trouble. Instead, Elena turned her monitor around. That forty-two-million-mark mistake carried a four-million-mark tax liability that would have triggered a federal audit. She told Henderson his carelessness almost cost the firm its license, told him to pack his desk, and handed the entire Sterling audit to . I report directly to her now."
Jake smiled, the tension in his shoulders easing. He rembered how crushed she had been when Henderson first dismissed her work without even looking at her notes.
"How did the rest of the office look when you walked out?" Jake asked.
"Completely silent," Catharine said. "The senior analysts weren’t joking around anymore. Nobody was looking at like I was a target. They just watched walk back to my desk. I sat down, adjusted my headset, and opened the next file."
"Good," Jake said, his voice firm. "You earned that. People like Henderson always try to use their title to hide their mistakes. You didn’t argue with him; you just let the compliance check do the work. Stick close to Elena, learn how she runs her audits, and keep doing exactly what you’re doing."
"I will," she said, her voice dropping into a softer, warr tone. "Are you still at the office?"
"Yeah, just wrapping up so structural paperwork with Samuel and Alice," Jake replied, leaning back further into his seat. "It’s going to be a long week setting up the frawork here."
"Don’t forget to eat sothing real, not just office coffee," she teased gently. "I’m heading back to my apartnt now to finish up so reading for Elena’s files."
"I’ll try," Jake chuckled. "Call when you get ho safely."
"I will. Bye, Jake."
Jake set the phone on the table. Alice walked into the boardroom a mont later, holding her digital tablet.
"Sir," Alice said, stopping a few feet from the table. "The logistics team just called. The four armored SUVs that were previously ordered—the two obsidian black rcedes-Benz G 63 AMGs and the two Range Rover SV Autobiographies—have just been delivered to the Zenith garage. The guards just inford ."
Jake nodded. With the scale of the trades Golden Investnts was making, security was becoming an imdiate issue, not a future plan.
"Good," Jake said. He looked over at Elias, who was standing by the door, then turned back to Alice. "Alice, tell your bodyguard to take one of those Range Rovers for your daily use starting today. It’s too inconvenient for you to keep navigating the city and managing your security without a dedicated vehicle."
"Understood, sir," Alice said, tapping a quick note into her tablet. "I’ll let him know to switch his gear over to the Range Rover before we leave the district."
Jake turned his chair toward Elias. "Elias, the other three SUVs stay at the house for our rotation. But we don’t have enough people. Use your contacts. Find drivers or extra guards you actually trust—n who know how to handle high-risk security—and get them on the payroll."
Elias straightened up, his eyes fixing on Jake. "How many n do you want, Mr. Rivers?"
"Enough to handle the driving and the building periter," Jake said. "I want a full team handling the logistics so that you and the primary guards don’t have to worry about checking gates or managing schedules. Your only job from now on is to watch the person you’re assigned to protect. Vet the new n tonight and have them deployed as soon as possible."
"I’ll get on it right now," Elias said, already reaching for his phone as he stepped back.
Jake turned his attention back to Alice. "Have any interviews been scheduled for the core office staff yet?"
Alice scrolled through her calendar on the tablet. "Yes. The initial interviews for the internal accounting team and the operational staff are scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday."
"Good," Jake said, pulling his notebook toward him. "Clear my schedule completely from Friday until Sunday. I don’t want any etings or distractions during those three days."
"Consider it done," Alice replied, updating the master schedule before stepping out of the room to coordinate with Elias.
Left alone in the quiet boardroom, Jake walked to his office and sat on his chair. He then picked up his phone and dialed a familiar number. It rang twice before Silas Thorne answered.
"Silas," Jake said without greeting. "Get the trading team ready. I’ll be sending over the direct market instructions shortly. And don’t go too safe on the trades. What I send you is what will happen."
"We’re on standby, Jake. Just give the word," Silas replied even though he was a bit skeptical.
"Expect the file within the hour," Jake said and hung up.
He sat back in his executive chair, pulled his laptop closer, and logged directly into the secure trading interface. The screen flickered, loading the real-ti, volatile market chart for XAUUSD.
As the green and red candles ticked rapidly against the dark background, Jake took a slow breath. He currently had 3.6 billion marks in cash sitting ready, but he had no intention of trading small. To push the absolute limits of that capital, he needed to leverage the bank’s capabilities to execute massive institutional positions. And to do that safely, he needed flawless precision.
He focused his gaze on the screen. Almost instantly, a dull pulse throbbed behind his left eye, and sothing inside him shifted.
The chaotic noise of the gold chart suddenly changed. The candles stopped moving like random, unpredictable updates and began forming patterns that surfaced with absolute clarity. It was like watching a language he finally understood perfectly. Every shift in montum, every liquidity sweep, and every hesitation in the price action laid itself out right in front of him.
His eyes tracked the screen as the resistance zones and hidden support levels highlighted themselves in his mind. He knew exactly where the market had been, and more importantly, exactly where it was going next.
Wasting no ti, Jake reached for his keyboard. His fingers flew across the keys as he translated the visual lines into a detailed, step-by-step trading slip. He mapped out the exact entry points, the leverage limits to maximize the bank’s institutional capacity, and the strict risk thresholds.
Once the file was compiled, he attached it to an encrypted ssage and sent the trading signals directly to Silas. With 3.6 billion marks backed by the bank’s scale, the execution would be massive. Jake closed the file, his eyes remaining on the glowing chart as the afternoon light faded entirely outside the window.
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