Chapter 6 - The Corporate Siege
My father didn't go down without a dirty fight.
Deprived of his personal funds, Arthur Sterling managed to secure a private loan from a shady hard-money lender in Los Angeles, using his remaining voting shares in Sterling Logistics as collateral. He hired a high-priced corporate defense attorney to challenge our civil injunction in court.
Their strategy was vicious: they filed a counter-suit claiming that I had used my military security clearance to illegally access Sterling Logistics' private financial servers and that Leo was mentally incompetent, claiming he had been "manipulated" by me into filing the trust lawsuit.
"They're trying to drown us in legal fees," Marcus Vance explained during a strategy session at his downtown office. "Your father knows that standard civil litigation can drag on for eighteen months. He thinks your lottery money will run out before the case reaches a jury."
"How much money does he need to keep his company afloat?" I asked, looking over the corporate balance sheets Vance’s team had assembled.
"Sterling Logistics has a massive twelve-million-dollar debt note coming due with Bank of America next month," Vance said, tapping a red line on the ledger. "If Arthur can't secure a five-million-dollar cash injection to pay the interest, the bank will foreclose on the company's shipping fleet, and Sterling Logistics will be forced into Chapter 7 liquidation."
I looked at the numbers, a sharp, tactical realization forming in my mind.
"Who holds the secondary debt on that shipping fleet?" I asked.
Vance checked his computer screen, then looked up with a slow, wicked smile. "A private equity firm called Pacific Rim Capital. And ironically enough... they just listed that secondary debt package for sale on the private institutional market this morning."
"How much for the debt package?" I asked.
"One point eight million dollars," Vance replied.
May you like
I leaned back in my leather chair, crossing my legs—my surgical knee moving smoothly, entirely free of pain.
"Buy it," I said. "Use my lottery funds to purchase every dollar of Sterling Logistics' secondary debt. I don't want to just sue my father, Marcus. I want to become his landlord."
