Hudson Nolan felt the air in the room turn heavy, the oxygen seemingly sucked out by the sheer audacity of Ace Kane’s proposition. The mention of a deposit exceeding $100 million wasn't just a financial figure; it was a seismic event in the landscape of regional banking. In this modern era, the very nature of wealth had shifted. The average citizen was no longer content letting their savings gather dust in a traditional vault. They were lured away by the siren song of digital fintech disruptors—those high-yield online platforms that promised instant returns and "robbed" the traditional banks of their liquidity.
For a man like Nolan, who had spent decades in the trenches of retail and commercial banking, deposits were the lifeblood of survival. Every year, the corporate higher-ups at the r
