The Forbidden Heir: Trillionaire's Secret Return

Chapter 4: The High-Stakes Bet

The air conditioning in the studio seemed to have failed, or perhaps the tension in the room was simply too thick for the machine to handle.

The atmosphere was stifling, clinging to the skin like wet silk.

Olivia Sterling sat behind her desk, her knuckles white as she gripped the edge of the mahogany surface.

On her computer screen, the encrypted email from "M" flickered with a ghostly, cold light .

"Buy the original shares of River City Textiles before 8:00 PM tonight. Do it in secret."

It felt like a suicide mission.

River City Textiles had been bleeding money for five consecutive quarters, its stock price so low it was bordering on delisting.

In the current landscape of River City, anyone with even a shred of financial sense knew that Hengmei Textiles was the only titan left standing.

To bet against them was to throw money into a black hole.

"Olivia, have you thought it through yet?"

Marcus’s voice was like the Caw of a scavenger crow, abruptly shattering the silence.

He pushed the door open, followed by two stern-faced legal representatives from the Sterling family.

"Hand over the card."

Marcus walked to the desk, slamming his palms down as he leaned over her, his eyes burning with a pathological jealousy.

"That black card belongs to the Sterling family assets. It isn't a toy for you and your useless husband to squander."

Olivia looked up, her gaze sharper than it had ever been.

"Assets? Three years ago, when the family stripped me of my inheritance because I chose to marry Ethan, did you talk about assets? This morning, when Grandmother tried to cut off my loan guarantees to bury me, did you talk about assets?"

"Times change."

Marcus sneered, his greedy eyes darting toward Olivia’s handbag.

"Everyone in the city knows you’ve caught the eye of a 'benefactor.' But Olivia, don't forget—the CEO of Hengmei Textiles is my closest friend. With one phone call, your next shipment of high-end fabric will be nothing but a pile of rotten cotton."

Olivia’s heart sank.

This was exactly what the warning in M’s email had predicted.

"What’s the matter? Scared?"

Marcus took her silence for weakness, his arrogance swelling.

"If you hand over the black card now and agree to meet Master Chadwick tonight, I might find it in my heart to ask Grandmother to let you keep a junior manager position here."

From the corner of the room, near the window where he had been quietly adjusting the blinds, Ethan Miller let out a soft, dry chuckle.

The sound was quiet, yet in the high-stakes silence of the office, it rang out like a gunshot.

"Ethan Miller! You piece of trash, what are you laughing at?"

Marcus spun around, glaring at the son-in-law he despised.

Ethan turned slowly, still holding a pair of shears he had been using to trim a potted plant. His cheap navy-blue shirt was slightly faded at the collar, making him look utterly unremarkable—a man who belonged in a kitchen, not a boardroom.

"I’m just laughing, Marcus, at the fact that your understanding of 'capital' is still stuck at the kindergarten level."

Ethan’s tone was peaceful, almost as if he were discussing what to have for dinner, but his words hit the floor with a heavy, undeniable weight.

"What did you say?"

Marcus’s face flushed a violent shade of purple.

"Hengmei Textiles is indeed the hegemon," Ethan said, stepping forward to stand naturally beside Olivia, a subtle but protective stance.

"But you seem to have forgotten that River City Textiles holds forty percent of the land-use rights in the Old District. If someone were to use a massive equity lever to forcibly take them over at this moment..."

Ethan didn't finish the sentence.

He merely looked at Olivia, his eyes offering a silent, anchoring strength.

In that moment, Olivia felt a surge of inexplicable power.

She remembered what Ethan had told her in the bank: "It’s your plan that impressed them."

Although her logic told her Ethan was just a simple husband, the stability he provided allowed her to make the ultimate gamble.

"Marcus, get out," Olivia said, standing up, her voice ringing with newfound authority.

"Go back and tell Grandmother that this card stays with me. As for Hengmei’s threat... I’m ready for it."

"Fine! Have it your way!"

Marcus snarled, pointing a shaking finger at them.

"Don't regret this, Olivia! I guarantee that within twelve hours, you’ll be on your knees at the villa gates begging for mercy!"

The door slammed with a violence that rattled the windows.

Silence reclaimed the office.

Olivia collapsed back into her chair, her palms slick with cold sweat.

She looked at Ethan, her voice trembling.

"Ethan... did I just lose my mind? If M’s information is wrong, I’ll lose the entire credit line in two hours."

"M’s information never misses the mark," Ethan replied softly, his fingers brushing against her shoulder for a fleeting second.

Olivia froze.

"You... you know him?"

"No," Ethan smiled that familiar, humble smile as he walked toward the water dispenser.

"I just believe in your intuition. After all, it’s the same intuition Shadow Capital bet fifty million dollars on, isn't it?"

7:50 PM.

Olivia sat alone at her computer, her fingers flying across the keys as she navigated the complex equity transfer interface.

Her movements were ghost-like, operating through a series of fragmented offshore accounts—exactly as M had instructed in the second, highly technical email.

She was like a silent octopus, suctioning up the dumped original shares of River City Textiles.

The sheer precision of the strategy felt like a "dimension-reduction strike" from a god of finance.

"Only five percent left..."

Olivia’s breathing became shallow.

If she could secure that final five percent, she would trigger a mandatory tender offer, legally seizing control of the venerable textile giant.

At that moment, her desk phone screamed.

It was the CEO of Hengmei Textiles—Marcus’s "best friend."

"Miss Sterling, I hear you're busy buying up scrap paper?"

The man’s voice was thick with the cruelty of a predator.

"I suggest you save your breath. The Pierce Family has just injected thirty million dollars into a short-sell maneuver. By 8:00 PM sharp, we will announce the bankruptcy and liquidation of River City Textiles. Your shares won't even be worth the price of toilet paper in sixty seconds."

Boom.

Olivia felt like she had been hit by a physical blow.

The Pierce family had intervened?

Why hadn't M mentioned this?

She looked instinctively out the window.

Down below, under a flickering streetlamp, Ethan was helping the elderly building custodian carry a heavy crate of newspapers.

He looked so ordinary, so small against the backdrop of the city’s skyscrapers.

Just as despair began to swallow her, a new red notification popped up on her screen.

It was an encrypted message from M.

"Ignore the price. Clear every sell order on the board. In three minutes, a scandal involving the Pierce Group’s illegal environmental violations in the West District will break. It’s their jugular. —M"

Olivia’s finger hovered over the 'Enter' key.

Thirty million dollars of pressure felt like a mountain on her chest.

Trust a stranger, or trust reality?

She closed her eyes, and the image of Ethan’s unyielding back at the bank flashed through her mind.

"To hell with it!"

Olivia slammed the key, pushing the remaining forty million dollars of her Shadow Capital credit line into the trading pool.

Downstairs, in the long shadow of the streetlamp.

Ethan brushed the dust from his hands and nodded politely to the grateful custodian.

He slipped a Bluetooth earpiece into his ear, his gaze turning as cold as liquid nitrogen.

"Young Master, the Pierce Group is attempting to intercept the Madame in the secondary market. They’ve committed all their liquid cash to the short-sell," Arthur Blackwood’s voice reported .

"They are digging their own graves," Ethan said, walking slowly toward his beat-up sedan.

His voice was flat, devoid of emotion.

"Proceed as planned. Leak the environmental violation evidence to every major media outlet. I want to see the Pierce Group’s stock go into a freefall within two minutes."

"Understood. Also, the private investigators sent by the Matriarch are looking into your part-time records from university."

"Give them exactly what they want to find," Ethan smirked. "

Let them believe I’m just a lucky kid who happened to save an executive’s life three years ago."

8:01 PM.

In the office, Olivia’s eyes widened as she watched the live charts.

The curve representing the Pierce Group’s holding company looked like a poisonous snake that had been decapitated.

Within sixty seconds, it plunged vertically, losing forty percent of its value.

The city’s financial news feeds exploded.

On the other side of the screen, with the Pierce Group’s funds suddenly frozen by the panic, the massive sell-pressure on River City Textiles vanished. Under Olivia’s aggressive buying, the stock price performed a miraculous V-shaped recovery.

"I... I won?"

Olivia stared at the green "Acquisition Successful" prompt.

She had not only secured her fabric supply; she had inadvertently taken control of the city’s largest land-reserve holder.

The door pushed open quietly.

Ethan walked in carrying a bag of steaming hot takeout, his smile as warm as ever.

"Honey, still working? I saw the streetlights go out downstairs."

Olivia looked at him.

The man before her and the cold, calculated "Master M" seemed to overlap and split in her mind.

"Ethan," she stood up and walked to him, staring directly into his eyes.

"Where were you just now?"

Ethan set the food down, rubbing his hands together a bit sheepishly.

"Helping the old guy downstairs move some boxes. Why? Did things go poorly? It’s okay, Olivia. If you lost the money, I can go beg that executive again tomorrow..."

His eyes were as clear as a mountain spring, showing no hint of the storm that had just leveled the Pierce family.

Olivia stared at him for a long time before letting out a heavy, bone-deep sigh.

The suspicion in her eyes faded, replaced by the sheer relief of survival.

"It’s nothing, Ethan. We... we might have to move."

"Move? Move where?"

Ethan asked, tilting his head with the innocence of a child.

Just then, a pair of piercing high-beam headlights flashed against the office window from the street below.

A black, modified SUV screeched to a halt at the curb.

The doors flew open, and several figures with cold, disciplined auras stepped out, moving with a lethal precision that didn't belong to the civilian world.

They vanished into the shadow of the building's entrance.

Their movements were too fast, too professional.

Ethan’s pupils contracted into needlepoints for a fraction of a second.

He knew those weren't guests coming to offer congratulations.

They were the hounds of the Miller Empire, having finally caught the scent of blood.

Was the three-year peace truly ending this soon?