Chapter 10 - Blood In The Harbor: Dominic’s Real Battle
Though the Ashfords were in federal custody, the fallout across Manhattan was catastrophic.
By Thursday morning, Wall Street was in a frenzy. Ashford-aligned hedge funds were dumping Mercer Shipping stock in a desperate attempt to trigger a margin call and bankrupt Dominic’s company before the market closed for the weekend.
Inside the Mercer corporate boardroom on the 60th floor of the Mercer Tower, twenty panicked board members and vice presidents were shouting at each other over the sound of plunging stock tickers.
“We’ve lost fourteen percent since the opening bell!” a senior director yelled, slamming his fist on the mahogany table. “The banks are demanding collateral! If we don’t inject two hundred million dollars in liquidity by 4:00 p.m., the trading board will suspend our operations!”
Dominic sat at the head of the table, looking like an emperor entirely unbothered by the peasants screaming around him. Beside him, I sat with a stack of audit reports, having spent the previous six hours identifying the hidden short-sellers who were driving the panic.
“Quiet,” Dominic said.
The single word cut through the shouting like a gunshot. The entire room fell dead silent.
Dominic turned to me. “Miss Howard, explain the numbers.”
I stood up, adjusting my tailored blazer, feeling every eye in the room drill into me. Four days ago, I was scrubbing these men’s coffee cups. Today, I held their financial survival in my hands.
“The sell-off isn't organic,” I stated with crisp, steady authority, pointing to the real-time trading graph on the massive wall screen. “Senator Ashford’s offshore shell company in the Cayman Islands is using three intermediary brokers to artificially flood the market with short orders. They are spoofing the algorithm.”
The chief financial officer blinked in astonishment. “How could you possibly know that?”
“Because Miss Howard spent the last forty-eight hours decoding the Ashford family’s private ledger,” Dominic answered coldly. He looked around the table with predatory satisfaction. “While they are shorting our stock, they have left their own primary logistics holdings in New Jersey completely leveraged and unprotected.”
Dominic stood up, leaning his palms on the table.
“Execute Order 9,” Dominic commanded his CFO. “We are buying back every single Mercer share at the discounted price, and we are using the Ashford family’s frozen collateral to buy eighty percent of their New Jersey terminals for fifty cents on the dollar.”
Gasps echoed around the boardroom.
Within forty-five minutes, the market reversed with violent momentum. The Mercer stock price skyrocketed by thirty-five percent in a historic short squeeze. The Ashford hedge funds were completely obliterated, their assets liquidated by the market exchange to cover the bad bets.
When the closing bell rang at 4:00 p.m., Mercer Shipping had not only survived—it had absorbed its largest competitor in North America, doubling its market capitalization in a single trading session.
The boardroom erupted into cheers and applause. Executive directors lined up to shake Dominic’s hand, but he ignored them all.
He walked straight over to where I was gathering my notes, a rare, breathtaking smile illuminating his dark face.
“You have a brilliant financial mind, Miss Howard,” he murmured, his voice low enough that only I could hear.
May you like
“I had a very good teacher, Mr. Mercer,” I replied, my cheeks warming with a sudden blush.
Dominic leaned down, whispering near my ear: “Tonight, there is one final piece of business we must settle.”
