Chapter 88 The Trap

Chapter 88 The Trap
♤SEBASTIAN♤

“Have you looked through the shipping manifests from the second quarter yet?” Noah asks, pacing two steps behind me as our shoes click against the floor leading to my new office at Cross Holdings.

I push open the door of the office, my eyes straight ahead.

“I looked at them. They are a complete mess.”

“So, did you brainstorm a magic trick to get us out of this?”

Noah steps inside after me, setting my briefcase on the edge of the desk.

“Because we have less than forty-eight hours before Notch Holdings legally locks the gates to our deep-water ports. The clock is ticking, boss.”

I drop into the executive chair, rubbing my thumb right over the bridge of my nose.

“I didn’t brainstorm anything, Noah. Yesterday was a nightmare. I had to go to sleep with another throbbing headache.”

Noah stops unzipping my bag and looks at me, his eyebrows drawing together.

“The headache again? Sir, I’m telling you, you need to see the doctor. It’s getting to be too much. No matter how much sleep you get, it doesn’t go away. It just keeps coming back.”

“It’s fine,” I mutter, waving my hand to brush him off. “It’s just stress.”

But deep down, I know it isn’t just stress. The real reason my head is spinning is because of Yasmin.

Our discussion by the lake last night is playing on a constant, maddening loop in the back of my mind. I can still see the little smirk on her face when she says it.

“I can’t wait to remember who you cheated on me with.”

The words are a physical weight in my chest.

I just hope she stops running her own secret investigation and sticks to the lie I gave her because that is the only way I can shield her from a truth that will destroy her sanity.

“Boss? Are you even listening to me?” Noah’s voice breaks through the fog, pulling me back to the present.

He has a massive schematic diagram of our international shipping routes pulled up on his tablet, tapping a red line that connects Chicago to the offshore terminals in Panama.

“I’m listening,” I say, forcing my eyes to focus on the screen. “Lay out the variables again.”

“Alright,” Noah sighs, leaning over the desk.

“Here is the puzzle. Beauty signed an airtight contract with Notch. If we don’t meet the monthly cargo weight quota on these specific routes, Notch takes the ports. But because Beauty froze the internal shipping accounts before she got demoted, we don’t have the cash flow to hire enough container ships to move that much weight in two weeks. If we try to cancel the contract, we pay a thirty-million-dollar breach fine. It’s a closed box. No matter which way we turn, we hit a wall.”

I stare blankly at the map on his screen, the blue lines representing the vast, open water of the shipping channels.

Water.

Suddenly, my mind wanders, flashing back to the resort pavilion from last night. I remember standing on that wooden pier, looking at the dark lake, watching the lights from the distant buildings twinkling on the surface.
I remember the way the water looked.

My eyes snap back to the map on the screen. I stare at the blue lines connecting our ports to the Panama terminal.

Wait.

A sudden spark of realization hits my brain, so violent it makes the headache behind my temples completely vanish.

The puzzle pieces in my head scatter and then click together with a perfect, crystal-clear snap.

“Noah,” I growl, my voice dropping low as I stand up from my chair.

“Look at the contract parameters again. What exactly does the text say about the cargo requirement?”

Noah blinks, caught off guard by the sudden energy in my voice. He quickly scrolls through the legal pages.

“It says we must move a minimum of fifty thousand tons of global logistics freight through the Panama gates every thirty days. If the total weight drops below that number, the collateral clause triggers.”

I lean forward, a triumphant smile spreading across my lips.

“It says freight. It specifies the weight, but does it specify the commodity value of the cargo inside the containers?”

Noah looks at the screen, his fingers tracing the lines of text. He reads it once, then twice, his jaw slowly dropping as his eyes go wide behind his glasses.

“No… it doesn’t. It just says forty-foot equivalent units of freight. It doesn’t say what has to be inside them.”

“Exactly,” I map it out for him, my fingers tracing a new line on the screen.

“Beauty’s trap relies on the fact that we don’t have the cash flow to buy or ship forty million dollars’ worth of high-end consumer goods to meet the weight. But we don’t need to ship high-end goods.”

Noah tilts his head as his brain tries to connect the dots.

I continue.

“We have three massive industrial storage yards in South Chicago filled with thousands of tons of scrap metal, raw iron ore, and industrial gravel from our old manufacturing sectors. It’s heavy, completely worthless to our competitors, and it costs us absolutely nothing to load.”

Noah lets out a breathless, stunned laugh, a wide grin breaking across his face.

“Oh my God. We load the container ships with thousands of tons of worthless scrap metal. We sail them straight through the Panama routes. The weight registers perfectly on the international port logs. We meet the quota, Notch can’t touch our deep-water ports, and it costs us next to nothing.”

“And the best part?” I say, my smile widening into something dark and ruthless.

“Notch has to keep their ships waiting at the dock to receive the freight according to the contract. They will spend the next two weeks unloading thousands of tons of industrial dirt, thinking they are seizing our premium merchandise.”

“That is brilliant, boss,” Noah exhales, shaking his head in disbelief as he slams his tablet onto the table in excitement.

“It’s completely legal, it fits the exact parameters of the contract, and it bypasses her loophole entirely. You are a literal menace.”

“I know,” I smirk proudly, buttoning my suit jacket as I lean back against the desk.

“I need you to coordinate with our transport managers at the south yard immediately. Tell them to begin loading the container hulls with the iron ore tonight. Do it quietly. I don’t want a single leak hitting the upper floors.”

“Understood, sir. I am on it,” Noah says, turning on his heel and rushing out of the office.

The doors click shut, leaving the spacious room in absolute silence.

I walk over to the window, looking out over the sprawling city of Chicago. For the first time in twenty-four hours, the suffocating weight in my chest is gone.

Beauty thought she was a master strategist. She thought she could use her petty little games to ruin my reputation in the eyes of everyone in this company.

But she forgot who taught her how to play the game in the first place.

I let out a quiet chuckle of triumph, my reflection in the dark glass glaring back at me.

“Nice try, Beauty,” I whisper into the empty room, my fists tightening inside my pockets.

“But it’s about time you got caught in your own trap.”