July 1st, 9:00 a.m. Wall Street. Gale Capital Investment Corporation.
"Is everyone here?"
Zane sat at the head of the long, polished table. His voice was quiet, but it cut through the nervous tension in the conference room. He scanned the faces looking back at him—a mix of seasoned traders and young, hungry analysts.
"Boss, twenty-three employees in the finance department," a man to his right replied. "All present."
The speaker was Henry Juggenberg. He was 45, with the kind of sharp, intelligent eyes that came from twenty years of navigating the brutal trenches of international finance. He was a senior investment manager, and for the last three months, the president of Gale Capital.
Gale Capital.
It sounded impressive, but Zane knew it was just a name he'd bought. On Wall Street, investment firms were like stars in the sky—countless, and easy to acquire if you had the cash. A financial license? With enough money, you could get one before lunch.
Zane had spent just over a million dollars to become the boss of this shell, and he'd done it three months ago for one purpose. He knew what was coming. The Asian financial crisis was a shadow on the horizon, a storm no one else seemed to see, and he had every intention of sailing right into the heart of it.
"Henry," Zane said, his voice dropping, "the numbers. Where do we stand right now?"
Henry Juggenberg didn't need to check his notes. "As of this morning, we've secured the equivalent of 2 million in Thai baht, 800,000 in Singapore dollars, 700,000 in Indonesian rupiah, 1.5 million in Japanese yen, 900,000 in South Korean won, and just over 3 million in smaller currencies from the region. Total foreign exchange held... 8.9 million dollars."
Zane nodded slowly, the numbers clicking in his head.
He'd set aside 20 million for this gamble. 8.9 million was already on the table, which left him with 11.1 million in reserve. He'd also parked a massive deposit with the bank, the only reason they were willing to give him the leverage he was about to demand.
"It's enough," Zane said, more to himself than to the room.
Was it? Of course it was.
It wasn't that he couldn't have thrown more at it. He could have scraped together 50 million, maybe even 80. But he didn't dare.
The risk in currency speculation wasn't just big; it was a monster. The market moved at the speed of light. It didn't care about your plans. Even for a man who knew the future—even if he could predict the crash down to the decimal point—it was terrifying. The other players, the predators carrying billions, weren't fools. They were sharks. They could smell blood, sense the smallest ripple, and adjust their plans a hundred times in a minute. They could, and would, wipe him out without a second thought just to see what would happen.
Throwing in hundreds of millions wouldn't make him stronger. It would just paint a bigger target on his back.
No. He had to be a ghost. Cautious. Precise.
He stood up, and the room went dead silent.
"Now, I announce the lockdown protocol. From this moment, all outside communication is cut. Cell phones, landlines, email, pagers... everything goes dark for at least one week."
He pointed to the heavy doors at the end of the room. "The security I've hired is already posted. No one enters, no one leaves. All food, coffee, and supplies will be brought in by my people."
He looked at each of them. "Understood?"
Zane's words were hard, final. But to the traders in the room, this wasn't a prison. This was the game. This was how you hunted. They nodded, a quiet, professional understanding passing between them.
This was standard procedure for a war.
The next day.
The foreign exchange market never really "opens." It doesn't sleep. It's a 24-hour beast.
Zane stood before the main board, sipping a lukewarm coffee. He gave his first order.
"We're shorting the baht. Three million dollars."
A trader looked up. "Standard 10x leverage, boss?"
Zane looked at him, his expression flat. "One hundred times leverage. Three million in, converted to 300 million in foreign currency. Bank deposit is 1%."
The room stopped. You could have heard a pin drop.
"Boss," a senior trader said, his voice strained, "one hundred times... that's insane. The volatility... We should test the water first. Ten times, maybe twenty."
"No," Zane said, his voice cutting off all argument. "One hundred times. Now."
It was Henry who broke the silence. "I support the boss's decision." Everyone turned to him. "The Thai market is dangerously hot. I've been watching the international hot money... a lot of it... pouring in all week. I'd bet 60% of it is short-selling, just like us. This is a once-in-a-lifetime alignment."
He tapped a chart on his screen. "Add the real estate bubble... their whole financial system is a house of cards. The government has to adjust the exchange ratio. They have no choice. This is our shot."
Zane gave Henry a small, appreciative nod. The man wasn't a time traveler; he was just that good.
Henry's confidence broke the dam. The room buzzed with support. Zane, meanwhile, was the calmest one there. He knew that, somewhere else on Wall Street, giants like Soros were probably using 400-times leverage. His move was aggressive, but not suicidal.
It didn't take long.
A news alert flashed across the screens. A press conference. The Thai government was officially abandoning the fixed exchange rate. They were implementing a floating system.
The words hit the room like a shot of adrenaline.
Zane felt a wild, ecstatic grin spread across his face.
It's on.
Across the world, every international buyer, every shark, every predator saw the blood in the water. It was a signal. A dinner bell.
Billions. Tens of billions. Hundreds of billions of dollars in capital lunged at Thailand's foreign exchange market. And in his own small way, Zane joined the feast.
The baht didn't just fall. It plummeted.
17%.
In less than a day, the Thai authorities, without enough U.S. dollar reserves to fight back, were overrun. The market was pure chaos. It had become a feeding frenzy.
"Boss... we're rich!" one of the younger traders yelled, his voice cracking with disbelief.
"My god," Henry breathed, staring at the numbers. "One day. One day and the baht is down 17%. The market's going to be a bloodbath next week."
"They don't have the reserves," another trader said, laughing. "They can't fight back. It's a free-for-all."
The excitement in the room was electric, a physical, giddy force. And why wouldn't they be excited? In less than 24 hours, Zane had made tens of millions of dollars. Was there anything crazier, anything more intoxicating in the world?
If there was, Zane didn't want to know. This was... insane.
"Guys! Don't let your guard down!" Zane's voice snapped through the celebration, bringing them back to earth. "This piece of fat? We've only taken the first bite. Now, we adjust. We pull back the leverage. Ten to thirty times, max. We operate steady. We're the small fish, and we don't want the sharks to wash us out by accident."
He looked around the room, a predator's smile on his face.
"This is just the beginning. Thailand is just the appetizer. Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines... they're all on the menu."
"Yes, boss!" the room roared, a single, unified voice. They were excited, they were thrilled, and they knew they were about to get very, very rich.
At that same moment, all across Wall Street, champagne was being popped. The celebration had begun. The gluttonous feast was just getting started.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Check My New Story : Dimensional Chat Group: Surviving Stranger Things
Huge Content: Read 350+ chapters ahead.+ Access to all my Fanfics Chapters.
Link: https://www.patreon.com/c/kapa69
100 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter.
Discount code : 03C64