Chapter 3 - The Boardroom Awakening
By 9:30 PM, the digital world was moving faster than Sloane Mercer’s Wi-Fi connection could handle.
Within an hour of the live stream, thousands of viewers had shared the clip. Comments ranged from cruel jokes to local college students laughing at the “clumsy waitress.” Sloane sat in a booth at an exclusive downtown lounge, surrounded by her friends, refreshing her screen every ten seconds to watch her follower count tick upward by the hundreds.
“Look at this,” Sloane squealed, spinning her phone around to show Evan. “I’m trending locally! People love it! Someone just commented that I should have dumped a milkshake on her.”
Evan chuckled, raising his glass of scotch. “To Sloane. Always giving the people what they want.”
None of them noticed the televisions mounted above the bar.
At 9:45 PM, a breaking financial news banner flashed across the local station: CALDWELL INDUSTRIES STOCKS HALTED AMID UNEXPECTED AUDIT.
Evan’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, frowning at the screen.
“Odd,” Evan muttered. “My dad’s assistant is calling me this late.”
He swiped to answer, pressing the phone to his ear. “Dad? What’s wrong? I’m out with Sloane—”
“Evan, where are you?” his father shouted through the speaker. The sound of shouting voices and papers rustling echoed in the background.
“I’m at the lounge—”
“Get home right now! Every single municipal contract we hold with the city of Baltimore has just been suspended for an immediate safety and compliance review! Our logistics partners in New York just pulled all of our shipping containers off the rails! We’re locked out of the port terminals!”
Evan’s face drained of color. His scotch glass slipped from his fingers, shattering against the floor.
“What? That’s impossible! Who has that kind of authority over the port commission?”
“I don't know!” his father roared. “Some private holding company called Rainer Logistics just bought up our primary debt and called it due immediately! They’re demanding full cash settlement by midnight or they seize all our warehouses! Half our board is resigning!”
Sloane stopped laughing. She looked at Evan, her phone still glowing in her hand. “Evan? What’s wrong?”
Before Evan could answer, Sloane’s own phone began to ring incessantly. Call after call flashed across her screen—her father, her uncle, her mother.
She answered her father’s line with a shaky hand.
“Daddy? Why are you calling—?”
“Sloane, what did you do today?!” her father screamed, his voice hoarse with absolute panic.
“I... I went to dinner at Harbor House with Evan—”
“Mercer Real Estate has just received a notice of default on our primary commercial mortgage! The bank backed by Rainer Capital just canceled our credit lines! All of them! They’re foreclosing on the downtown plaza by morning!”
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Sloane dropped her phone onto the table. The screen flickered, showing the live stream video she had posted an hour earlier—the video of a drenched waitress wiping soda from her blouse while warning her to explain it to her husband.
“No,” Sloane whispered, her eyes wide with sudden, terrifying comprehension. “No, that’s impossible... she was just a waitress.”
