53 Destroying a Company 1

"What would you target if you want to destroy a company completely?"

As Liz heard this question when the plane was taking off, a thoughtful expression came on her face as she tried to think of an answer.

Soon after the CEO had made that striking statement before, she had been asked to head to the limousine.

After entering the limousine himself, the CEO had gone on to make a series of phone calls, almost ignoring her existence.

Liz had started to think that nothing had changed between them even though she had cleared her name, but the idle tone that this question was asked in on the plane made her realize that things were back to how they were before that incident had happened.

She still only felt indifference at the CEO due to his actions before which were still unexplained, but for some reason, she fell slightly happy inside on seeing this development.

Yet, squashing that happiness out of existence due to the resolution she had made in Luke's diner, Liz put on the same professional expression before answering in a neutral tone.

"The foundation. Any building will collapse if its foundation is destroyed."

This was an open-ended question, so she had decided on this open-ended answer.

Yet, it seemed that she had hit the mark as the CEO glanced at her and raised one eyebrow before saying, "Good answer. That's right. But what if the foundation of a company is this large? Their net worth is $ 700 million, if all the operations they have all over the world are counted. Instead of taking Happle's route and reaching the peak in one segment, they branched out and have seen varied success. Take this."

Saying so, Will hand over a thick file which Liz accepted and started to go through.

The plane had just taken off, but she still had no idea about where they were going. Of course, she didn't elect to ask because she knew that she would find out soon enough.

After a few minutes, Liz looked up with an expression of shock on her face.

It seemed as if this company was present everywhere. Farming, mining, automobiles, alcohol, oil, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications. If she remembered correctly, these were all the top industries in the world.

The good thing was that they weren't near the peak in any one industry. Yet, for some reason, they had recently been expanding in the technology space and had apparently pooled all the money coming from the other industries to push them forward.

Although they weren't yet a threat to Happle in any way, it was definitely possible that they would go on to become one. This was indicated by the explosive rate of growth which had allowed them to reach the second spot in the technology market in the US in just three years.

"How is it possible? Such fast growth… It doesn't make sense."

She had indeed seen news reports that Sylvex was the fastest growing company in the past decade, but she hadn't seen the exact number.

From nothing, this company had risen to its current spot.

"That's right. It doesn't. That's why I ordered a probe into the company long ago, but I didn't expect that they would infiltrate mine in this manner. But, they are not the only ones who have spies."

Saying so, the CEO took out a different file which was marked with the word 'confidential'.

Handing it over to Liz, he waited as she went through it with growing shock in her eyes.

"Is… Is this real?"

"Yes. I'm afraid it is."

Listed in this document were the other operations of Sylvex.

Illegal drug sales and weapon manufacturing.

Apparently, this was the original business of this company that was established by the family of the same name.

But, unlike other such families who focused on these two markets, this family had made the decision to move into other global industries by pumping the money they got from these two activities into their businesses.

The main reason behind them expanding so fast in the US was the enormous amount of money that was constantly being put into the company to aggressively advertise their products and sell them fast to gain market dominance. As for where the money came from, although investigations had been made, the trail was clean as everything pointed to a few investors who were based outside the country.

Liz had seen such things in the movies, but she had never expected that she would encounter something like it in real life.

These were such dangerous people, and they had set out to destroy them?