The dashboard clock on the leather-upholstered console of Marcus’s sedan read 1:42 AM.
Four hours. In exactly two hundred and eighteen minutes, the Frankfurt Stock Exchange would open its morning clearinghouse, followed forty-five minutes later by the London Stock Exchange. If Valentin Rostov’s emergency injunction against Reed-Vance Global went live on the European tickers before the sun rose over Western Europe, the automated credit-default swaps built into Arthur Vance’s old corporate framework would trigger a cascade of institutional margin calls.
By 9:00 AM Eastern, Reed-Vance Global would be frozen. By noon, Valentin would own the fleet.
Marcus navigated the sleek dark sedan through the rain-slicked streets of Chicago’s West Loop, his dark blue eyes fixed on the empty pavement ahe
