Chapter 5 - The Freeze
Richard’s hands shook as he dialed his head of corporate security.
“Mark, get up here now,” Richard barked into the receiver. “She got out.”
“Who got out, Mr. Foster?”
“Jasmine! She cut the ties. She left the building. Find her. Check the local hospitals, check the boutique hotels, check her friends’ apartments. Put a trace on her credit cards and her phone immediately!”
“Her phone is on her bedside table, sir,” Mark replied after a beat. “I had a tracker on her vehicle, but her car hasn't moved from the sub-level garage.”
“Then she took a cab or walked! Find the footage from the lobby!”
“On it, sir.”
Richard hung up, his chest heaving. He paced the length of the living room, running both hands through his slicked hair. It didn't make sense. Jasmine had never shown an ounce of grit. She cried when stray dogs appeared in commercials. She apologized when waiters brought the wrong order. She had taken his slaps last night with wide, terrified eyes, cowering like a beaten stray.
How had she sawed through military-grade paracord with a flowerpot shard?
His phone buzzed. It was Marcus Vance, Foster Capital’s chief financial officer.
“Richard, we have a catastrophic problem,” Vance said, his voice breathless and cracked with hysteria.
“Not now, Marcus. I have a domestic situation—”
“No, Richard, listen to me!” Vance shouted over the line. “The syndicate loan. The eighty million from Continental Trust. They just pulled the approval.”
Richard stopped dead in his tracks. “What? That’s impossible. The collateral was verified on Friday. The commercial leases alone cover twice the margin.”
“Continental received an injunction twenty minutes ago from the Supreme Court of New York,” Vance stammered. “A lis pendens notice was filed against all fourteen properties under Apex Holdings. The title is being contested.”
“Contested by who?” Richard roared, veins bulging along his neck. “I own Apex!”
“No, you don’t,” Vance whispered. “The paperwork filed by the Sterling legal team proves Apex was held in a blind grantor trust under Victoria Sterling. Upon her death, full control didn’t pass to the estate—it passed directly to a private holding firm whose sole officer is Jasmine Sterling Foster.”
The room seemed to tilt. The penthouse air turned thin, suffocating.
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“She’s freezing the accounts,” Richard breathed, horror dawning over him. “She’s trying to choke my credit lines before the market opens.”
“It gets worse,” Vance said. “Continental didn't just pull the loan. They issued a margin call on our existing twenty-million-dollar mezzanine facility. We have until twelve o'clock noon to deposit thirty million dollars in cash, or they seize Foster Capital’s operating accounts.”
