"What's wrong? Did something happen to Zane?" she asked.
"Annelise, the Patterson Family... is bankrupt."
Annelise Valentine froze.
"Bankrupt?" She frowned. "What do you mean?"
'The Patterson Family was a huge enterprise. Just their Veridia shipping business alone was enough for them to live off for a lifetime. How could they possibly go bankrupt?'
Chloe Fairchild sighed, turning the laptop in front of her around. The screen was filled with dense data.
"Starting three months ago, the Patterson Family's cargo ships started having frequent problems. They were either crashing or being impounded. Customs was holding them up too. Seven or eight ships are stuck in port, unable to leave."
"Then someone started shorting their stock," Sean Conrad added, his voice heavy. "The stock crashed, the capital chain broke, and the banks started calling in their loans. We looked into it all night..."
He paused. "The Quinn Family did it."
