Chapter 4 - The Collapse of Albright Atlantic
By 8:00 a.m. the next morning, the financial district of Chicago was buzzing with a quiet, catastrophic panic.
Albright Atlantic Freight—one of the oldest shipping dynasties in the Midwest—had just suffered a cardiac arrest.
In a penthouse office overlooking the Chicago River, Harrison Albright stared at his computer screen with bulging, bloodshot eyes. The stock ticker for his company was flashing a brilliant, terrifying crimson. Down 42% in pre-market trading.
Ring.
The desk phone shrieked. Harrison snatched it up with trembling fingers.
“Albright!” he barked.
“Mr. Albright, this is the chief risk officer at First National Chicago,” a cold, robotic voice replied. “I’m calling to inform you that our credit committee has voted unanimously to call in your revolving credit lines. The fifty-million-dollar bridge loan due next month has been accelerated. Payment is required in full within forty-eight hours.”
Harrison’s face drained of what little color it had left. “Accelerated? You can’t do that! Our agreement gives us sixty days of leeway on restructuring!”
“Not when our primary institutional backer liquidates their holdings in your enterprise,” the banker replied smoothly. “And as of seven minutes ago, the Kane Holding Group has acquired our entire portfolio of your corporate debt. Good luck, Mr. Albright.”
Click.
The line went dead.
Harrison dropped the receiver, his chest heaving as the room spun around him. Kane. Dominic Kane had moved overnight. No warnings, no negotiations, no polite phone calls through intermediaries. Just a swift, merciless execution of a debt-ridden family whose spoiled heiress had slapped the wrong pregnant woman in a South Side lounge.
The heavy mahogany doors of his office banged open.
Vivian stumbled inside, her hair unwashed, her eyes red and swollen from crying, wearing the same ruined designer dress from the night before.
“Daddy!” she sobbed, throwing herself across the mahogany desk. “You have to do something! Dominic Kane had me thrown out of the Sapphire Room by his thugs! They dragged me across the pavement! My friends are all texting me, the club revoked my membership, and—and my cards are all declined!”
Harrison looked at his daughter—the spoiled, arrogant princess for whom he had bent rules, forged documents, and taken dirty money from syndicate fronts across the lake.
“You stupid girl,” Harrison whispered, his voice shaking with a rage so profound it made his teeth chatter. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“Me?” Vivian recoiled, her mouth dropping open in outrage. “I didn't do anything! It was a clumsy waitress! She spilled champagne on me!”
“That waitress,” Harrison hissed, standing up so fast his chair crashed into the wood-paneled wall behind him, “was Nora Warren. The widow of Dominic Kane’s best friend.”
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Vivian froze. The color drained entirely from her face. “The... the dead engineer’s wife?”
“Kane didn't ruin us because of business,” Harrison said, walking over to the floor-to-ceiling windows and staring out at the grey, indifferent waters of the Chicago River. “He ruined us because you dared to touch someone he swore to protect. Pack your bags, Vivian. We’re bankrupt. And if Kane decides to press the issue about who funded the hit on Eli Warren fourteen months ago... we won't just lose our money. We’ll lose our lives.”
