Chapter 24 - The Press Conference on Pier 54
By eleven o'clock that morning, the New York Stock Exchange had temporarily halted trading on Thorne Capital's publicly traded debt instruments.
Julian had barricaded himself inside his Midtown headquarters, but his public relations team had launched a frantic counter-offensive, releasing a statement accusing me of "tortious interference, corporate espionage, and entering into a fraudulent marriage of convenience to defraud institutional bondholders."
Sophie Lane had even gone on CNBC, sitting in the green room with tears glistening in her eyes, telling the host that Julian was the victim of a "cold, calculated corporate setup orchestrated by a bitter ex-fiancée who couldn't accept that love can't be bought."
Cole and I didn't hide in a skyscraper. We held our press conference right where the war had started: on the windswept expanse of Pier 54, against the backdrop of the rusted iron framing of Julian’s half-built commercial tower.
Dozens of journalists were huddled under the industrial heaters our team had set up. Behind us, parked on the deep river channel, sat three massive Montgomery tugboats, their horns silent, their engines humming like sleeping leviathans.
I walked to the microphone, the cold wind whipping my dark hair across my cheeks. Cole stood a pace behind me, his arms crossed over his chest, looking every bit the unyielding master of the waterfront.
"Good morning," I said, my voice steady as the river current. "Two hours ago, Thorne Capital issued a statement claiming that Montgomery Infrastructure defrauded their investors. They claim I entered into a fraudulent union with Cole Montgomery to strip them of their development rights."
I signaled to Arthur, my father’s head of corporate security, who walked forward and handed me a thick, red-stamped manila folder.
"Let’s talk about fraud," I said, pulling out a sheaf of certified bank wire receipts and holding them up for the cameras. "Between March and November of this year, Julian Thorne transferred forty-six million dollars from the Hudson Harbor construction contingency fund into an offshore shell entity registered in the Cayman Islands under the name 'Starlight Holdings.' The sole beneficiary of Starlight Holdings is not a subcontractor. It is not an engineering firm."
I looked directly into the lead camera of the Bloomberg feed.
"The sole beneficiary is Sophie Lane," I announced.
A collective gasp swept through the press pack. Notebooks rustled furiously; fingers flew across smartphone keyboards.
"While Julian Thorne was lecturing our board about cost overruns and demanding personal capital infusions from the Montgomery family, he was funneling our family trust's money into private real estate in St. Barts and luxury retail accounts in Paris for his mistress," I continued, my voice sharp as broken glass. "And three weeks ago, Julian attempted to forge the maritime soil density reports for this very pier, burying a structural fault that would have collapsed the western concourse into the river within five years."
I paused, letting the magnitude of the revelation sink in.
"We did not execute this riparian charter to seek revenge," I said, turning to look at Cole, who stepped up beside me, placing his hand firmly at the small of my back. "We executed it to protect this city from a criminal syndicate operating under the guise of private equity. As of noon today, Montgomery Infrastructure has filed an emergency petition with the Southern District of New York for the immediate judicial receivership of Thorne Capital."
A reporter from the New York Times shouted above the wind: "Mrs. Montgomery! Does Thorne Capital have the liquidity to meet its three o'clock debt covenant?"
Cole stepped to the microphone. His deep, gravelly voice cut through the noise like an axe through kindling.
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"Julian Thorne’s credit lines were frozen forty minutes ago by Chase and Morgan Stanley," Cole said bluntly. "He doesn't have enough liquid cash to pay the diesel bill on his construction generators. By three o'clock, Thorne Capital won't just be in default. It will cease to exist."
***
