The Billionaire's Last Coin

Chapter 4: The vulture's Feast

POV: Chief Otunba

I swirled my glass of thirty-year-old whiskey. The golden liquid caught the light of the city below. From my penthouse window, Lagos looked like a map I was finally winning.

​"Is it true?" I asked. I didn't turn around. I wanted to keep looking at the skyline I was about to own.

​My secretary, Sarah, stood by the door. "Yes, Chief," she said, her voice low. "Elias has liquidated everything. The shipping contracts, the oil blocks, even his personal mansion in Ikoyi. It was a fire sale. He sold it all in six hours."

​I let out a loud, cold laugh. It felt like a weight had been lifted off my chest. I had waited ten years for this day. For a decade, Elias was the "Golden Boy." The newspapers called him a visionary. He won every contract I wanted. I hated his confidence. I hated how he looked down at me from his glass tower, as if I were a common street trader.

​"And his family?" I asked, sipping my drink. "The crash was real?"

​"His wife is dead, sir," Sarah replied. "His daughter is in the hospital. They say she’s in a coma. That’s why he sold the empire. To pay for the surgery."

​I shook my head and smiled at my reflection in the window. "What a fool. A man’s empire is his life. You don't throw away a kingdom for a little girl who might never wake up. Elias was always too soft. He chose love over power, and in this city, love makes you a beggar."

​I walked over to my heavy mahogany desk and picked up a cigar. "Call the bank. Tell them I want to buy his shipping fleet. I want it for half of what it’s worth. He’s desperate for cash to pay those doctors, so he’ll have to say yes."

​"But Chief," Sarah whispered. "His daughter is dying. People are saying he’s a hero for giving up his money."

​"A hero?" I spat the word out. "A hero with no shoes is just a poor man. By next week, no one will remember the name Elias. They will only remember me. I’m going to take his office. I’m going to sit in his leather chair. I’m going to make sure that when he leaves that hospital, he has absolutely nothing to come back to."

​I thought about Elias sitting on a hard plastic bench in a crowded hospital hallway. I imagined him drinking warm water from a plastic cup. I imagined the moment he realizes he is now one of the "common people" he used to look down on.

​"Go to the hospital," I told Sarah. "Find out which room the girl is in. I want to visit him tomorrow. I want to see the look on his face when I tell him I bought his life’s work for pennies. I want to see if he still feels like a 'Golden Boy' when he has to ask me for a job."

​I sat back in my leather chair and blew a thick cloud of smoke into the air. Yesterday, Elias was a King. Today, he was a ghost. And I was going to enjoy every second of his fall.