Chapter 12 - The Police at the Penthouse Door
While Shiaoza was signing his final surrender inside the county detention facility, the final act of cleanup was unfolding across the city at the luxurious St. Regis private residences.
At 11:30 PM, a team of four sheriff’s deputies, accompanied by building security and two court-appointed locksmiths, arrived outside Penthouse 42B.
Inside, the residence was in a state of absolute, chaotic devastation.
Jang Chin Tong’s mother, Martha Jang, and her younger brother, Kevin Jang—the twenty-one-year-old who had been listed as the president of the fraudulent shell company Apex Logistics—were frantically stuffing designer duffel bags with diamond necklaces, luxury handbags, and stacks of banded cash retrieved from the floor safe.
“Hurry up, Kevin!” Martha shrieked, stuffing three Hermès Birkin bags into a large cardboard box. “The lawyers said the court freeze goes into effect at midnight! If we don't get these bags into the rental car downstairs, we won’t have a single dollar left!”
“I’m trying, Mom!” Kevin yelled back, his hands shaking as he struggled to zip a leather suitcase overflowing with Rolex watches and gold bullion bars. “The freight elevator is still locked! How are we going to carry six suitcases down forty-two flights of stairs?”
Before Martha could scream an answer, the heavy oak double doors of the penthouse burst open with a deafening CRACK!
Four armed sheriff’s deputies poured into the marble foyer, their tactical weapons drawn and flashlight beams cutting through the dim apartment.
“Sheriff’s Department! Nobody move! Put your hands in the air immediately!”
Martha screamed, dropping a five-thousand-dollar crystal vase that shattered into a million pieces across the imported parquet floor. Kevin froze, his hands trembling violently above the open suitcase of stolen gold.
Behind the deputies stepped Victoria Sterling, holding a certified federal asset seizure warrant.
“Kevin Jang?” Victoria asked, her voice cold and commanding.
The young man swallowed hard, his knees knocking together in terror. “Y-Yes...?”
“You are under arrest for federal wire fraud, identity theft, and corporate embezzlement exceeding fourteen million dollars in connection with Apex Procurement Logistics,” Victoria stated with clinical precision.
“No! No!” Martha wailed, throwing herself onto the floor and clutching the deputy’s combat boots. “This is a mistake! My daughter is President Shiao’s fiancée! He bought all of this for us! This is family property!”
Victoria looked down at the hysterical woman with utter contempt.
“President Shiao is currently sitting in a maximum-security holding cell after forfeiting every single asset to Vane-Shiao Global Holdings,” Victoria replied. “And your daughter is facing twenty-five years in federal prison. Every item in this apartment—including the clothes in those bags—is stolen corporate property.”
Victoria signaled to the deputies.
May you like
“Cuff them both. And have the asset recovery team catalog every single grain of dust in this penthouse.”
As the deputies clamped the steel handcuffs around Kevin’s and Martha’s wrists, dragging them out into the hallway past the stunned neighbors, the final physical stronghold of Shiaoza’s shadow empire was officially dismantled.
