Reborn To Ruin The Billionaire

Chapter Six:The Freezing Asset

The pristine glass table in the conference room of Cross Holdings was supposed to be the launchpad for Jason’s empire. Instead, it felt like an executioner’s block.

"What do you mean, the server is unresponsive?" Jason hissed, his boyish charm entirely evaporated. He slammed both palms onto the table, glaring at his chief technical lead, a sweating twenty-something named Marcus.

"I mean exactly that, Jason," Marcus stammered, frantically typing on his laptop. "The cloud repository where Vera kept the foundational source code for the trans-Pacific predictive logic... it’s completely empty. It hasn’t just crashed. It’s been wiped clean with a military-grade data-shredding protocol. There’s nothing left to audit."

Jason’s heart hammered violently against his ribs. The morning meeting with his seed investors had been a disaster. He had walked in with absolute confidence, pitching a revolutionary supply-chain logistics platform that could map international shipping vulnerabilities with pinpoint accuracy. But when the venture capitalists demanded a live, back-end stress test of the algorithm, the system returned a catastrophic 404 error.

The investors hadn't just walked away; they had pulled their initial structural loans.

"Call her," Jason ordered, his voice trembling with a mixture of rage and escalating panic. "Call my wife right now. She’s probably running the patch she talked about last night and locked the server for security."

"I tried," Marcus whispered, flinching slightly. "Her personal number is disconnected. And Jason... it’s worse. Look at the financial district news feed."

Marcus turned his laptop around. Jason’s eyes locked onto the live media stream. His breath hitched.

Across every major financial news outlet, a giant, sleek digital billboard in the heart of the metropolis was flashing an announcement that shook the upper echelons of society:

MARRIAGE ANNOUNCEMENT: VIJAY RAJA, CEO OF RAJA GLOBAL, MARRIES CHIEF INDEPENDENT AUDITOR VERA JENSON IN A PRIVATE CEREMONY.

Jason stumbled backward, hitting the back of his leather chair. Vera Jenson. Her birth name.

The screen flashed a crisp paparazzi photograph taken early that morning. There was Vera, looking breathtakingly elegant in a tailored cream crepe suit, her hand wrapped securely around the arm of Vijay Raja—the most feared, untouchable billionaire in the country. The man known in whispered boardroom circles as "The Cabal."

Vera hadn't been sleeping. She hadn't been patching code.

She had packed her life into a single suitcase while he was out celebrating a fake victory, taken the master encryption key, and handed it directly to the enemy.

"She played me," Jason whispered, the realization cutting through his panic like a shard of ice. "The 'Asia-Pacific data glitch' last night... she stalled me so she could pull the rug."

His phone suddenly buzzed violently on the table. It was an automated alert from his primary bank account. The predatory bridge loan he had taken out from an underground shell company to cover the company's early overhead had just been recalled. Because his investor capital had failed to materialize by noon, the lenders were enforcing a catastrophic default clause.

His corporate credit lines were frozen. Cross Holdings was bleeding out, losing millions in credit rank with every tick of the clock.

"Get the car," Jason roared, his face flushing a dangerous, volatile crimson as he ripped his designer suit jacket from the chair. "I don't care who she thinks she’s married to. She is *my* asset. I built her, and she is going to unlock that server before the market closes."

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Thirty minutes later, Jason’s car screeched to a halt outside the towering, obsidian-glass monolith that was the Raja Global Headquarters. The building loomed over the city like a dark fortress, its reflective surface gleaming under the overcast, rain-heavy sky.

Jason stormed through the revolving glass doors of the grand lobby, his chest puffed out with a desperate, aggressive bravado.

"I'm here to see Vera Jenson—Vera Cross," Jason demanded, slamming his corporate ID card onto the polished marble reception desk. "Tell her her husband is downstairs."

The receptionist, an impeccably polished woman in a dark uniform, didn't even blink. Her eyes calmly swept over his flushed face and disheveled tie. "Do you have an appointment with the Chief Auditor, Mr. Cross?"

"I don't need an appointment to see my own."

"Mr. Cross."

A deep, gravelly baritone cut through the lobby, instantly dropping the temperature in the room.

Jason turned around. Stepping out of a private executive elevator was a man who seemed to command the very air in the room. Vijay Raja stood broad-shouldered and imposing in a bespoke navy suit, his dark, lethal eyes locked onto Jason with absolute disdain.

Beside him, stepping out of the shadow of his massive frame, was Vera.

She looked entirely different from the quiet, accommodating woman who had made him breakfast just twenty-four hours ago. Her raven-black hair was styled into a sharp, flawless bob, her crimson lips turned up in a cold, devastatingly beautiful smile. She held a sleek digital tablet against her chest, looking down at Jason as if he were nothing more than a minor accounting error.

"Vera!" Jason stepped forward, his hands twitching. "What the hell is the meaning of this? You wiped the servers. You locked the algorithm! You have forty-eight hours to hand over the encryption key or my legal team will sue you for everything you are worth."

Vera didn't flinch. She took a single, elegant step forward, remaining safely behind the perimeter of Vijay’s towering frame.

"Sue me with what capital, Jason?" Vera asked, her voice smooth, steady, and entirely devoid of fear. "According to the live market data on my tablet, Cross Holdings' credit rating was downgraded to 'D' exactly four minutes ago. Your bridge loan is defaulted, your investors have abandoned your seed round, and by tomorrow morning, federal regulators will be auditing your personal accounts for systemic fraud."

Jason's breath hitched. "You... you sabotaged me."

"I took back what was mine," Vera corrected coldly, her eyes flashing with lethal, second-chance fury. "The algorithm belongs to my patent pool, not your startup. I told you last night, Jason, I wanted your presentation to look flawless. It’s a shame you didn't have the intellect to back it up."

"You b*tch," Jason lunged forward, his self-control snapping completely as he raised a hand to grab her arm.

He didn't even make it a foot.

Vijay stepped into the gap instantly, his movement fluid and terrifyingly fast. The billionaire caught Jason’s wrist in a grip of absolute steel. With a single, brutal twist, Vijay forced Jason to his knees on the hard marble floor.

Jason let out a sharp cry of pain, his knees cracking against the stone as Vijay loomed over him like a dominant sovereign.

"You are standing in my kingdom, Mr. Cross," Vijay whispered, his voice dangerously low, vibrating with a terrifying, predatory aura that made the security guards in the lobby stand at absolute attention. "The woman you are trying to touch is the Chief Auditor of Raja Global. She is my wife. If you so much as breathe in her direction again, I won't just liquidate your company—I will ensure your name is permanently erased from the financial register of this country."

Vijay released his wrist, tossing Jason away like a piece of refuse. Jason slumped onto the floor, clutching his throbbing arm, his handsome face twisted in absolute humiliation as the lobby security details stepped forward to surround him.

Vera looked down at her ex-husband, her expression pure, unyielding ice. She turned to Vijay, her hand naturally resting against his arm. "Let's go, Vijay. The board meeting is about to start, and we have a lot of Cynthia’s assets to freeze."

Vijay looked down at her, a dark, fiercely proud amusement flashing deep within his eyes. He wrapped his large hand over hers, pulling her close against his side.

"As you wish, Mrs. Raja," Vijay murmured, his voice laced with a dark, possessive satisfaction as they turned back toward the executive elevator, leaving Jason broken and ruined on the lobby floor.

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