Amon's plan was not to run Roxxon as an oil company.
That was the business of the old world. He saw it for what it truly was, a pre-built, global logistics and transportation network with access to every major port and political capital on the planet.
He would bleed its fossil fuel divisions dry, letting them wither and die and repurpose its vast infrastructure for his own needs.
Roxxon Oil would become the black ops logistics arm of his growing shadow empire.
The board members had been neutralized, their personal fortunes and reputations shredded. Now, it was time for the public humiliation.
The directive from Amon arrived on Fisk's terminal with no preamble. It was an elegant piece of corporate strategy that doubled as a death warrant.
It contained a list of names for a new board of directors and a single order.
An emergency shareholder meeting for the Roxxon Corporation was called for the following morning.
The official reason cited was to "address the recent catastrophic market collapse and to chart a new path forward for the company."
For the beleaguered executives of Roxxon, it was a final chance to save their careers. For Wilson Fisk, it was the stage for a public execution.
The meeting was held in Roxxon Tower's main auditorium, a grand space that now felt more like a courtroom.
The mood was funereal.
The remaining shareholders, mostly representatives from institutional investment firms who hadn't managed to dump the toxic stock in time, sat in grim silence.
The world's financial press had gathered at the back, their cameras like vultures waiting for the final death rattle.
On the stage, under the harsh glare of the lights, sat the executive board. Hugh Jones, the CEO, looked like a ghost.
The once powerful man who had commanded boardrooms with an iron fist was now a hollowed out shell, his suit hanging loosely on a frame that had shed twenty pounds in two weeks.
His fellow board members looked no better… a collection of defeated old men who had watched their life's work and personal fortunes evaporate into nothing.
The meeting was a formality, a carefully choreographed piece of corporate theater. The preliminary motions were read, the grim financial reports were presented. Then came the main event.
A single representative, a lawyer from a small firm in Geneva, stood up. He spoke in a calm voice, representing a consortium of "private investment groups" that had collectively acquired a 78.4% controlling interest in the company.
He then formally put forward a motion. A vote of no confidence in the entire executive board, effective immediately.
A wave of murmurs swept through the auditorium. It was a corporate decapitation.
Hugh Jones stumbled to the podium, his face a mask of disbelief and impotent rage. "This is an outrage!" he stammered, his voice cracking. "I have dedicated thirty years of my life to this company! We have faced market downturns before. This... this is a coordinated attack! An illegal manipulation! I will not stand by and allow "
"The motion is on the floor, Mr. Jones," the lawyer from Geneva cut him off, his voice as cold and sharp as a shard of glass. "We will now proceed to the vote."
The process was merciless and swift.
One by one, their names were read aloud. And one by one, the overwhelming 78.4% share voted them out. Their decades of power, of backroom deals and golden parachutes, were stripped away in a matter of minutes.
They were fired, publicly and humiliatingly, from the very company they had run into the ground.
As the final vote was cast, a final image appeared on the massive screen behind the stage: the faces of the twelve board members, each with a single red line drawn through it.
They sat there for a moment, stunned into silence, as the press cameras flashed, capturing their pathetic moments of disgrace.
Then, the lawyer from Geneva spoke again. "The new ownership would now like to present the new board of directors for ratification."
A new set of names and faces appeared on the screen. To the world, they were respectable figures.
There was a financial analyst known for his ruthless efficiency in restructuring bankrupt companies.
There was a legal expert in international maritime law.
There was a stern looking woman who was a renowned specialist in corporate security and logistics.
Their résumés, meticulously fabricated by the Red Queen, were flawless. They were the perfect team to "rescue" the failing company.
In reality, they were Injustice League assets. Loyal soldiers in business suits, their pasts a digital fiction, their loyalty absolute and unbreakable.
They stood up from their seats in the front row, their faces calm and professional and walked onto the stage to take the seats of the men they had just replaced.
The vote to install them was unanimous.
Hugh Jones and the old board were escorted from the stage by security, their faces a mixture of shock and utter ruin.
They were no longer titans of industry. They were just unemployed old men, about to face a litany of Federation investigations that would consume the rest of their lives.
From his penthouse, Wilson Fisk watched the live feed of the meeting, a grim satisfaction settling over him. It was a masterpiece of controlled demolition.
The rotten structure had been brought down and a stronger one, one that he now secretly controlled, was being erected in its place.
The final piece of the puzzle was the new CEO. Amon had a specific candidate in mind.
He was a tool, perfectly suited for the job.
Amon had found him languishing in a mid level position at a rival energy firm.
His name was Arthur Hayes.
Hayes was a brilliant but ruthless operator, a man with immense ambition, a trail of buried professional bodies in his past and a deep seated resentment for the old money corporate elite who had always held him back.
He was hungry, amoral and he was eternally grateful to the mysterious benefactor who handed him the keys to a global empire.
He was the perfect puppet CEO, happy to run the company as directed, so long as the money and power flowed his way. He never questioned where the orders came from.
With the new leadership in place, the true restructuring began. Under the public guise of "rebranding and moving towards a sustainable future," Hayes began a systematic dismantling of the old Roxxon.
The fossil fuel exploration divisions were the first to go, sold off for parts to the highest bidder. The revenue from these sales was funneled into a newly formed subsidiary: "Roxxon Global Logistics."
This new entity was the true prize.
It inherited Roxxon's entire global fleet of supertankers, its network of secure port facilities, its fleet of cargo planes and its deep rooted political connections in dozens of countries.
Overnight, Amon had a worldwide transportation network that could move anything, weapons, personnel, technology… anywhere on the planet without raising a single flag.
A shipment from one of his black sites could be logged as "industrial machine parts" and shipped on a Roxxon tanker, its journey protected by the legal and corporate legitimacy of a Fortune 500 company.
The most crucial step was dealing with the personnel. Roxxon had thousands of employees. Many were useless, but some were highly valuable.
Amon had the Red Queen perform a deep dive analysis of every single employee, from the oil rig roughnecks to the research scientists in their remaining labs.
Scientists with unique skills in advanced materials or energy production were flagged.
Amon didn't fire them. Instead, his new HR department, run by Injustice League operatives, approached them. They were told that due to the company's new direction, their old projects were being terminated.
However, a "private, well funded research institute" was interested in their work and was willing to triple their salary and give them unlimited resources.
They were being poached by their own company, moved into a black site research facility now controlled by Amon, their valuable knowledge taken off the books and put to work for his own ends.
Security personnel, particularly those with military or intelligence backgrounds, were given a different offer.
They were folded into a new "Corporate Security and Risk Assessment" division. This was, in reality, the seed of Amon's private army.
They would be retrained by Blonsky, their skills honed, their worldview slowly shaped. Those who adapted would become the professional soldiers of his new world order. Those who resisted would be quietly dismissed.
The rest of the company, the thousands of office workers, accountants and marketers tied to the old oil business, were systematically laid off.
It was a brutal but necessary purge, trimming the fat and leaving behind a lean organization built for a single purpose to serve as the physical arm of Amon's will.
Fisk watched it all from the sidelines, a silent partner in the greatest corporate raid in history.
He managed the old underworld, keeping the streets quiet and the cash flowing, but he knew the real game was now being played on a global stage he was only just beginning to comprehend.
He was a king, but his kingdom was a single city block in a world now owned by giants.
In his bunker, Amon reviewed the final transition reports.
Roxxon Oil was dead. In its place stood Roxxon Global Logistics, a legitimate, powerful and utterly controlled global entity.
It was the perfect corporate ghost that could move his pieces across the world map with impunity.
Red Queen's avatar appeared, looking at the new corporate logo on the screen… a stylized black 'R'.
"A new coat of paint on a rusty old bucket," she commented. "It's all very impressive. You took a monster and turned it into your own pet monster. So, what's its first trick? Fetch? Roll over?"
Amon's gaze was fixed on a map of the world, his focus already on the next phase.
"It will deliver," he said.
The acquisition was complete. Now, it was time to put his new asset to work.
PS: This marks the end of Amon's arc. Congratulations, guys, this is our first bonus chapter for this novel, haha. Now come on, show some power and let's unlock the next one. Hahaha
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