Too Late to Hold Me Back novel Chapter 455

Under the guise of liquidating assets to fund a massive joint development project with the Rivers Group, Ethan began selling off everything the Mercer Group owned. Whatever couldn't be sold was transferred, and whatever couldn't be transferred was heavily mortgaged to the banks.

It was a race between father and son, but Adrian's aging reflexes meant he was destined to lose to his own flesh and blood.

Furthermore, Ethan still wielded supreme executive authority over the conglomerate, giving him a massive structural advantage.

As a result, Mira's offshore accounts were flooded with catastrophic amounts of capital. Hundreds of millions of dollars poured in every single day under the pretense of Ethan purchasing mutual funds.

"Damn, another billion just cleared!"

Even though Mira had prepared herself mentally, she was genuinely stunned by Ethan's terrifying ability to bleed a company dry.

Mira had engineered a highly specialized portfolio just for him. On the surface, the fund looked perfectly legitimate.

However, using sophisticated high-frequency trading algorithms—and occasionally consulting Dominic West to scrub the digital footprints of their buy and sell orders—the actual results were a devastating illusion.

Moreover, right before the massive fund executed a buy order on a specific stock, Mira would use a shell account to aggressively long the same asset.

Once the fund's massive influx of capital artificially pumped the stock price to the moon, Mira would liquidate her shell account at the peak. It was essentially moving money from her left hand to her right, disguised as organic market growth.

The sudden spike would also trigger a frenzy of retail investors blindly chasing the rally, allowing her to ruthlessly harvest their capital on the way down. This was the exact playbook Wall Street titans used to manipulate the global markets.

Just days before the national exams, the highly publicized fund Ethan had poured billions into spectacularly crashed, suffering a seventy percent loss. The catastrophic plunge triggered an automatic liquidation protocol, forcibly shutting the fund down.

Out of the massive fortune Ethan had dumped into it, only thirty percent was salvaged.

Yet, playing the role of a desperate, red-eyed degenerate gambler, Ethan refused to accept defeat. He violently shoved the remaining salvaged billions right back into another highly volatile fund.

Even the seasoned analysts at the financial firms were bewildered by the suicidal trades. "What the hell is wrong with Ethan Mercer?"

"He probably snapped under the pressure. He's just throwing good money after bad at this point," a colleague muttered.

Glancing at the terminal and confirming the fund was plummeting exactly as she had mathematically modeled, Mira gave a few final instructions to the portfolio manager and confidently logged off to take her exams.

She wasn't overly stressed about breaking records; as long as she performed to her normal standards, her score would be exceptional.

After three grueling days of testing with zero major hiccups, Mira finally exhaled a long breath of relief.

She could finally put her academic textbooks away and pivot her attention to the corporate bloodbath.

That evening, Owen and Dominic West were hanging out when they called Mira on speakerphone. "So, how did the exams go?"

"Oh, right. You mean Dominic West."

"Heartless kid. I've taught you elite hacking techniques multiple times, and I don't even earn the title of mentor?" Dominic scoffed.

"Alright, alright, you've earned it. I'll call you my teacher from now on, okay?"

Dominic didn't say yes, but he didn't complain either. A few minutes later, he lowered his voice. "Did you finish vaporizing your brother's capital?"

He knew Mira had been secretly manipulating Ethan's corporate funds and had helped her wipe the digital trails a few times.

"It'll be completely zeroed out shortly. Then we move to the next phase."

"I swear, for someone so young, you have a terrifyingly evil mind," Dominic muttered.

"I had a great teacher."

The teacher in question, of course, being Dominic.

"Hahaha," Owen burst into laughter, thoroughly enjoying the banter.