Chapter 6 - The Counter-Strike
At seven o'clock on Sunday morning, the penthouse suite of the Vale family brownstone on East 74th Street was a disaster zone.
Vanessa Vale sat at the kitchen island, still wrapped in a monogrammed silk robe, her makeup from the night before smeared across her cheeks like war paint. Her phone was buzzing continuously on the marble countertop—dozens of notifications per minute from Instagram, TikTok, and Page Six.
The audio recording from the St. Regis had leaked.
A guest at Table Four had captured the entire exchange on an iPhone and uploaded it to TikTok at 11:30 PM. By 3:00 AM, it had three million views. By sunrise, the hashtag #VanessaValeScum was trending number one in the United States. High-fashion brands that had sponsored her wedding wardrobe were already issuing public statements distancing themselves from her, claiming they had "no prior knowledge of Ms. Vale’s behavior" and were "reviewing their brand partnerships."
"Daddy, do something!" Vanessa screamed, slamming her mug of black coffee onto the island, sloshing liquid across an architectural magazine. "Sue them! Sue TikTok! Have the video taken down! My agent says three PR firms have already dropped me!"
Marcus Vale stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows, his phone pressed to his ear. He hadn't slept. His silver hair was disheveled, and his expensive Italian shirt was unbuttoned at the collar.
"I don't care what the judge said at midnight!" Marcus bellowed into the phone. "Get Judge Miller on the line! Call his wife if you have to! I need an injunction blocking the transfer of the domain registries by eight AM, or we are finished!"
He paused, listening to the frantic voice on the other end.
Marcus’s face darkened, turning a sickening shade of gray.
"What do you mean, they already served the SEC?" Marcus whispered, his voice cracking with sudden panic. "On a Sunday morning? Who the hell accepts an SEC filing on a Sunday?!"
He pulled the phone from his ear and stared at the screen as the line went dead.
"Daddy?" Vanessa asked, her voice small, a childish whimper breaking through her usual haughty arrogance. "What is happening? Where is Adrian? Did he come back to the hotel?"
Marcus turned around slowly, looking at his daughter with eyes that were hollow and dead.
"Adrian didn't go back to the hotel, Vanessa," Marcus said, his voice flat and lifeless. "Adrian went to Maya Cross."
"That little rat?" Vanessa spat, her face twisting into an ugly sneer. "What can she do? She has no money! She has no connections! She’s nobody!"
"She has the patent, Vanessa," Marcus said, his voice rising in sudden, violent frustration. He swept his arm across the island, sending an antique silver fruit bowl crashing to the floor. Pears and apples rolled across the hardwood. "She has the proprietary code! She has the original Delaware charter! And she has Elena Vance!"
At the mention of Elena Vance, Vanessa’s mouth snapped shut. Even with her limited understanding of the business world, she knew that name. Elena Vance was the woman who had sent three Wall Street executives to federal prison during the mortgage crisis.
Before Vanessa could speak, the intercom on the kitchen wall buzzed sharply.
Marcus hit the button. "What is it?"
"Mr. Vale," the building’s doorman said, his voice trembling through the speaker. "There are several federal agents in the lobby from the Southern District of New York. They have a warrant, sir. They’re coming up in the service elevator right now."
Vanessa gasped, jumping off her stool. "Agents? What do you mean, agents?! Daddy, what did you do?!"
Marcus didn't answer. He walked toward his private study, his steps heavy and dragging, like an old man being led to the gallows. He opened the heavy mahogany door, walked inside, and locked it from the inside.
A minute later, the front door of the penthouse swung open.
Four agents in windbreakers bearing the initials *FBI* and *SEC* stepped into the foyer, flanked by two uniformed NYPD officers. Leading them was a tall woman in a sharp navy suit, carrying a thick leather briefcase.
Special Agent Sarah Chen.
"Vanessa Vale?" Agent Chen asked, pulling a laminated badge from her pocket.
Vanessa stood frozen in the middle of the kitchen, her silk robe clutched to her throat. "This is private property! You can't just walk in here! My father is Marcus Vale!"
"We know who your father is, Ms. Vale," Agent Chen replied calmly. "We have an arrest warrant for Marcus Vale for securities fraud, wire fraud, and grand larceny. And we have a subpoena for you, Ms. Vale, regarding the unauthorized transfer of twelve million dollars from Sterling Technologies corporate accounts to an offshore shell entity in Monaco."
Agent Chen gestured to the two uniformed officers behind her.
"Where is your father?"
Vanessa pointed a shaking, manicured finger toward the locked door of the study.
May you like
As the federal agents moved past her to breach the door, Vanessa collapsed onto the kitchen floor among the spilled fruit and cold coffee, her phone still buzzing in her hand with millions of notifications from a world that had once worshipped her, and was now eagerly watching her burn.
***
