“You’re Richard Sterling,” I said. My voice wasn’t loud, but the absolute, crushing stillness of my tone carried through the quiet tent.
Richard Sterling handed the microphone to an aide and stepped to the edge of the dais, looking down at me with the cold, dead eyes of a man used to crushing insects. “You have a tremendous amount of nerve, old man. Not only do you assault my son and damage a two-million-dollar vehicle, but you come into my luncheon tracking mud like a feral animal.”
“I was tending to my flowers,” I replied evenly. “Your son destroyed my property.”
Jason laughed out loud, leaning against a support pole. “Your property? You don’t own anything, you pathetic loser! Dad, call security and have him arrested.”
Richard raised a hand, silencing his son, wanting to play the magnanimous ruler for the board. “I am going to give you a very generous offer, groundskeeper. Turn around, walk off this campus, and never return. If I see your face in town, I will ensure the police charge you with felony vandalism and harassment. You will die in a county jail cell. Now get out.”
The crowd murmured in agreement, emboldened by Richard’s ruthless display of authority.
I looked at Richard. I looked at Jason. Then I looked at the crowd of people willing to let a boy in a Bugatti destroy an old man in the dirt.
“You like leverage, Richard,” I said softly, my voice devoid of any warmth. “You like buying things you can’t afford with money you don’t actually have. You borrow against companies you intend to bleed dry.”
Richard’s confident smirk faltered for a fraction of a second. The extreme specificity of the insult caught him off guard. A dirty groundskeeper shouldn’t know the mechanics of his corporate raid strategy. “I don’t have time for the ravings of a crazy old man,” Richard snapped, waving his hand toward a pair of campus security guards standing near the catering tables. “Remove him. Use force if you have to.”
The guards began to approach, unhooking their radios.
I didn’t step back. I didn’t raise my fists.
I lifted the heavy, solid gold Vertu phone to my ear.
Jason burst into laughter. “Is that a fake? Where did you steal that, you old rat? Are you calling the insane asylum?”
The security guards were ten feet away.
“This is Vance,” I spoke into the phone. The biometric voice recognition clicked immediately, connecting me to the Avalon Trust’s primary risk command center in Geneva. “Activate protocol Winter. Withdraw all financial protection from the Sterling family. Call the margin on the entire umbrella facility. Execute immediately.”
The silence in the tent was absolute. The guards hesitated, confused by the immense, terrifying authority radiating from a man in filthy overalls.
Richard Sterling scoffed, shaking his head. “Protocol Winter? What movie did you pull that from? Escort him out!”
I lowered the phone and simply stood there, ignoring the guards. I stared at Richard Sterling.
Three seconds passed.
Ten seconds passed.
Jason rolled his eyes. “Well, that was dramatic. You done playing pretend, old man?”
At fifteen seconds, the air in the tent began to feel unnaturally heavy. The extreme confidence of my posture was creating a cognitive dissonance that the wealthy crowd couldn’t process.