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THE ART OF SOCIAL WARFARE

2025-11-19 02:49:27

Dorian's phone buzzed at precisely 9:47 PM on Wednesday evening, exactly forty-eight hours after his meeting with the Shaws. The message was brief: *Call me. You need to hear this. - PS*

He dialed Preston Shaw's secure number, expecting a progress report. What he got instead was something far more interesting.

"It's not me you need to talk to," Preston said. "It's my wife. She's..." He paused, and Dorian heard something like awe in his voice. "She's already at three events. Three. And Mr Dorian, she's not just effective. She's magical."

"Put her on," Dorian said, leaning back in his chair with growing interest.

Victoria Shaw's voice came in calm and collected. "Mr. Dorian, I wanted you to know that your investment is already yielding returns."

"Tell me," Dorian said simply.

"The Riverside Charity Luncheon was yesterday. Seventy-five women, all from the upper echelons of society. Elias and Sera were seated at the head table as major donors—they pledged half a million to the children's

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WARTIME FOOTING
The memo went out to all Shaw Realty employees at 9:00 AM sharp, marked urgent and requiring acknowledgment of receipt. Marcus had drafted it. Sera had edited it. Elias had signed it. Now, standing in the main conference room with his entire management team assembled, Elias was about to explain what it meant."Thank you all for coming on short notice," he began, looking at the faces around the table—department heads, property managers, senior staff who'd been with the company anywhere from three years to twenty-five. "I'm going to be direct because we don't have time for anything else. As of this morning, Shaw Realty is operating under what we're calling wartime management protocol. Everything about how we do business is changing, effective immediately."He pulled up a slide on the screen behind him. The title read: SURVIVAL PRIORITIES."For forty years, this company has focused on growth. Acquiring new properties, developing new projects, expanding our market share, maximizing profit
FORTRESS PROTOCOL
The war room—what used to be Shaw Realty's secondary conference room—looked like a military command center by 6:00 AM Friday morning. Whiteboards covered three walls, mapping out their properties, assets, vulnerabilities, and defensive strategies. Marcus Chen stood at one board, marker in hand, while Sera worked through financial models on her laptop. Elias paced, phone pressed to his ear, speaking with their legal team."Understood. File the motions this morning. I want every property title secured before noon." He ended the call and turned to the room. "Legal is moving on the asset protection trust. Even if Shaw Realty goes into bankruptcy, the trust structure will shield our key properties from immediate liquidation.""Meridian, Harborview, and Preston?" Marcus asked."And the Riverside Commons development, once it's complete," Elias confirmed. "They'll be held in a separate legal entity that's technically independent of Shaw Realty's corporate structure. It's not foolproof, but it
WHAT REMAINS
That evening, after Marcus had gone home and the office had emptied, Sera and Elias sat in the living room which had little light. They'd barely spoken during the drive home, both lost in their own thoughts about what the next twenty-four hours would bring.Sera held a glass of wine she hadn't touched, watching the city lights through their floor-to-ceiling windows. Elias sat beside her on the couch, his tie loosened, his jacket discarded somewhere between the car and the house."Tell me what you're thinking," he said quietly.She took a breath, considering her words carefully. When she spoke, her voice was steady, measured—the tone she used when analyzing financial projections, not when discussing the destruction of everything they'd built together."In three days, we went from defending what we have to accepting that we might lose it all." She turned to look at him. "And that was cool."Elias studied her face, searching for doubt or regret. "Are you really?""I don't know if 'okay'
THE REFUSAL
The three days felt like seventy-two days.Elias had spent them in constant motion—meetings with lawyers, conference calls with the board, strategy sessions with Marcus and Sera that stretched past midnight. Catherine Aldridge had provided additional resources, her team working around the clock to document every connection between Dorian's network and the attacks on Shaw Realty. The federal prosecutor had reviewed their evidence and, while stopping short of promising immediate action, had indicated that what they'd compiled was "compelling and actionable."Now, at 8:47 AM on Thursday morning; thirteen minutes before Dorian's deadline, Elias sat in his office with Sera and Marcus, staring at the letter he'd written by hand on Shaw Realty letterhead. Old-fashioned, perhaps, but this deserved the weight of ink on paper."Last chance to change your mind," Marcus said, though his tone suggested he already knew the answer.Elias picked up the letter and read it one final time.Dorian,I rec
THE FINAL OFFER
The envelope arrived by courier at 9:00 AM on a Thursday morning, three months to the day after the first attack had begun. Elias stared at it across his desk—heavy cream stock, his name written in elegant calligraphy, sealed with actual wax embossed with an ornate "D."Dorian's signature.Elias had lost weight since this started. His hands trembled slightly when he was tired, which was always now. The reflection he'd caught in the bathroom mirror that morning showed a man who'd aged a decade in ninety days—gray creeping through his hair, lines carved deep around his eyes, a hollowness in his cheeks that spoke of too many missed meals and sleepless nights.He picked up the envelope with steady fingers—a small victory of will over body—and broke the seal.Inside was a single sheet of paper, the message typed in the same elegant font as the envelope:Mr. Vance,By now, you understand the full scope of your situation. Shaw Realty's market capitalization has decreased from $2.8 billion to
THE TROJAN HORSE
Sera hadn't slept. At three in the morning, she sat in her home office surrounded by documents, her laptop screen casting a blue glow across her face. The Apex Capital proposal lay on her desk, but she'd moved beyond the legal terms hours ago. Now she was digging into something that had been nagging at her since Catherine Aldridge walked into their conference room.The timing was too perfect.Apex had reached out within hours of Shaw Realty's credit downgrade going public. They'd already prepared a comprehensive proposal—one that suggested weeks of analysis and diligence. Catherine had known specific details about their operational failures at Meridian and Harborview, information that wasn't public knowledge yet.How had they known so much, so fast?Sera pulled up Apex Capital's recent SEC filings, cross-referencing their limited partner roster against a database of corporate relationships she'd been building. Standard due diligence. She was looking for any connection, however tangent

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WARTIME FOOTING

FORTRESS PROTOCOL

WHAT REMAINS

THE REFUSAL

THE FINAL OFFER

THE TROJAN HORSE