Damian's Pov
The fallout from the Sterling humiliation was exactly as I had intended: surgical, swift, and permanent. Sterling's equity partner contacted Finch by 10:00 AM, demanding a full review of the firm's regulatory compliance history. The city regulator issued a public statement confirming the "absolute clarity" of the Thorne Tower environmental assessment. Sterling himself was now professionally crippled, a dinosaur who dared to challenge the new king's authority. The systemic ripple effect was the true measure of success. It was not enough to simply win; one had to restructure the entire battlefield so that the very idea of resistance became obsolete. Sterling had not just lost the permit battle; he had lost his leverage, his reputation, and, ultimately, his usefulness in this city's cutthroat ecosystem. He was now a cautionary tale, a monument to the foolishness of challenging the inevitable.
