Part 2The Mute Heiress Strikes Back: The Eight-Year-Old Wall Street Wolf

That step was light.

But in the dead silence of the boardroom, it landed like a thunderclap.

Everyone’s eyes instinctively snapped toward me.

They saw me.

An eight-year-old girl in a custom-tailored dress, looking like a porcelain doll.

Their eyes were blank at first, then filled with shock.

Eleanor Sterling?

The mute?

What was she doing?

My mother, sitting beside my father, saw me too. Her eyes widened with panic and worry.

She reached out a hand, as if trying to call me back, but didn't dare make a sound.

My father frowned deeply, his eyes flashing with confusion and a hint of displeasure.

My cousins, Chloe and Harper, exchanged a look of pure anticipation.

Their expressions practically screamed: Is the idiot about to humiliate herself in front of everyone?

Marcus noticed me too.

He looked down at me from his towering height, a cruel, mocking smile spreading across his face.

“Oh? Whose kid is this?”

“Is Sterling Enterprises out of capable men? You’re sending a child to the front lines?”

He intentionally raised his voice.

“Little girl, are you here to talk to me about sentiment, too?”

“Or is your daddy offering you up as my goddaughter to sweeten the deal?”

He threw his head back and laughed loudly.

The shareholders let out collective, suppressed gasps, their faces burning with humiliation and rage.

Insulting a child was insulting the entire bloodline.

Yet, they still didn't dare speak up.

I ignored every single one of them.

My eyes were locked solely on Marcus, who was yapping away like a circus clown.

I looked at him, and then, I opened my mouth.

And spoke the very first words of my life in this world.

“Are you done?”

My voice was youthful, but my enunciation was razor-sharp, the tone absolutely freezing, devoid of a single drop of emotion.

The entire boardroom instantly plunged into a bizarre silence, even more profound than before.

Everyone froze.

Because they understood.

Every single person in that room understood.

The mute heiress had spoken.

And her English was flawless, carrying the crisp, aggressive cadence of the East Coast elite.

The smile on Marcus’s face instantly crystallized.

His sharp eyes blew wide open with sheer, unadulterated shock.

It was as if he had just seen a ghost in broad daylight.

He stared at me, his mouth opening and closing. A strangled, choking sound came from his throat, like an invisible hand was crushing his windpipe.

“You…”

He barely managed to force out a single word.

I stared at him, my expression blank.

And I continued.

“If you're finished, get out.”

Those six words slammed into Marcus’s chest like a sledgehammer.

His body violently swayed.

The color drained from his face entirely, leaving him a sickening shade of gray.

If my first sentence caused shock.

This sentence caused terror.

A bone-chilling, soul-crushing terror.

Because in the inner circles of Wall Street, "If you're finished, get out," wasn’t just a casual insult.

It was legendary. It was the exact phrase George Soros had supposedly delivered to his rivals decades ago after breaking the Bank of England.

It was lore.

It was a myth.

It was a historic quote that only the most cutthroat, top-tier financial predators knew about!

He looked at me, this eight-year-old girl, and his eyes completely changed.

He wasn’t looking at a mute child anymore.

He was looking at a monster wearing human skin.

“Who… who the hell are you?”

He asked, his voice shaking uncontrollably.

The other people in the boardroom were completely dumbfounded.

They understood the words, but they couldn't comprehend the scene unfolding before them.

The Wall Street Wolf who, just seconds ago, had been arrogantly trampling a room full of corporate elites, was now trembling like a frightened rabbit in front of an eight-year-old girl.

What… what on earth was happening?

My father shot up from his leather chair. His eyes were wide, staring at me with a terrifying intensity. His face was a mix of shock, ecstasy, and endless confusion.

My mother slapped both hands over her mouth, tears flooding her eyes as she desperately held back her sobs.

I didn't answer Marcus’s question.

I just kept speaking, my voice eerily calm.

“That hedge fund you claim to represent? It’s just a marginalized spin-off from Goldman Sachs. The real whales pulled their capital years ago. All you’re managing now is a pool of stale pension funds.”

“Three years ago, when you shorted that Silicon Valley tech startup, you didn’t rely on brilliant market analysis. You bribed their CFO to get your hands on their unreleased earnings reports.”

“Last year, when you acquired that software company, your so-called proprietary valuation model was ripped straight from a five-year-old McKinsey template. You got taken for a three-hundred-million-dollar ride, and you actually thought you won. Right?”

“And now.”

I offered a small smile. In Marcus’s eyes, that smile was more terrifying than the devil himself.

“You came here to acquire Sterling Enterprises with a hard bottom line of two billion. If my father played hardball, you were authorized to go up to two point five billion.”

“Because your cash flow is dangerously tight. If you don't close a major deal right now, you won't even be able to pay out year-end bonuses.”

“You don't even have the capital stomach to swallow Sterling Enterprises. You just want to close a flashy deal before Q4 earnings to appease your panicked investors.”

“Tell me. Am I right, or am I right?”

I finished speaking and looked at him quietly.

Thud!

Marcus couldn't hold himself up any longer.

His knees buckled, and right in front of the entire executive board, he collapsed onto the floor.

He stared at me, pressing his hands against the carpet, cold sweat pouring down his forehead. His voice was laced with a whimper.

“My God… My God…”

The room was dead silent.

Everyone was utterly paralyzed by the surreal, magical scene playing out.

I didn't look at him anymore.

I turned around, facing my father, who was standing at the head of the table, equally shell-shocked.

I switched from my aggressive Wall Street tone to perfectly calm English.

My voice was youthful, but impossibly clear.

“Dad.”

“I have something to say.”

My single “Dad” was like a boulder dropped into a stagnant pond.

It triggered a tidal wave.

The boardroom transitioned from deathly silence into an uncontrollable, erupting uproar.

“Eleanor spoke!”

“Thank God! She isn't a mute!”

“She can talk! She can actually talk!”

One of the older shareholders was so emotional he was weeping. He stood up, pointing a trembling finger at Marcus. “Do you see this?! This is the eldest granddaughter of the Sterling family! The future heir!”

The rest of the room looked at me like they were witnessing a divine miracle.

Shock.

Awe.

Unbelievable disbelief.

A child who hadn’t uttered a sound in eight years.

The moment she opened her mouth, she spoke flawless, ruthless English.

In a few short sentences, she had brought the arrogant Wall Street elite to his knees, shivering in fear.

This couldn't be explained away as "being a late bloomer."

This was a miracle.

A living, breathing miracle!

My mother couldn't support her own weight anymore and slumped softly into her chair.

The nanny next to her quickly caught her.

I could hear her muffled, suppressed sobs of pure joy.

The expressions on my cousins’ faces were absolutely priceless.

The mockery and schadenfreude were completely wiped away.

Replaced by the same terrified, ghost-seeing shock as everyone else.

And a deep, poorly concealed layer of… fear.

They were no longer looking at an idiot.

They were looking at a terrifying, incomprehensible entity.

My father.

He stood at the head of the conference table, his towering frame trembling slightly.

Not from anger. But from extreme, overwhelming excitement.

His eyes, hardened by decades of corporate warfare, were shining brighter than they ever had before.

Inside them was ecstasy, awe, and the thrill of recovering a lost treasure.

But also, just like my cousins… confusion.

He walked around the heavy conference table, step by step, until he stopped right in front of me.

This corporate titan who controlled a multi-billion-dollar empire, the man who was my father by blood.

He looked down at me with a complex, intense gaze I had never seen before.

His lips moved, as if he wanted to ask a million questions, but didn't know where to start.

Finally, he slowly reached out a trembling hand and gently rested it on the top of my head.

His palm was warm.

And large.

It carried the weight of a powerful CEO, and the rare, tender warmth of a father.

“Eleanor…”

His voice was incredibly hoarse.

“What you… what you just said. Is it true?”

He was, of course, asking about the internal secrets I had exposed about Marcus’s fund.

I looked up, met his gaze, and nodded calmly.

“Every single word.”

My voice wasn't loud, but it echoed clearly across the room.

The shouting and murmurs died down instantly.

Everyone held their breath, straining their ears.

My father took a deep breath, trying to steady his racing heart.

“How… how do you know all this?”

That was the million-dollar question.

The biggest mystery in everyone's mind.

How could an eight-year-old possibly know the highly classified internal struggles of a New York hedge fund?

I looked into my father's eyes.

I knew that my answer right now would dictate the rest of my life.

If I told him I had the memories of a past life?

He would think I was a demon and lock me in a psychiatric ward to be studied.

I had to give him an answer he could comprehend, accept, and be willing to believe.

So, I spoke.

“I don't know.”

“Ever since I can remember, strange numbers and images have constantly flashed through my mind.”

“It’s like a dream. There’s a voice that constantly teaches me about finance, economics, and corporate case studies.”

“I thought they were just dreams, so I never told anyone.”

“The English… the voice taught me that in my dreams, too.”

“As for Marcus’s secrets…”

I paused for a second, allowing a perfectly calculated look of childlike confusion to cross my face.

“Just now, while he was talking, all that information just naturally appeared in my head.”

“It’s almost like… I was just born knowing it.”

I finished speaking and looked at him quietly.

A divine dream.

Born with innate knowledge.

Those concepts struck everyone like lightning bolts.

It was incredibly mystical, yet… somehow entirely convincing!

There was literally no other explanation for what had just happened to an eight-year-old girl!

My father’s body jolted again.

He looked at me, the confusion in his eyes fading, replaced by a fervent, burning light.

He threw his head back and laughed loudly.

It was a booming, triumphant laugh, filled with years of repressed frustration finally breaking free.

“Hahahaha!”

“Good! A divine dream! Born a genius!”

“My daughter is no idiot!”

“Arthur Sterling’s daughter is a natural-born business prodigy!”

He reached down and scooped me up into his arms.

I was small, and he easily hoisted me high into the air.

He turned to face the room full of executives, his voice ringing like a bell, radiating unprecedented pride and authority.

“Listen to me, all of you!”

“As of today, Eleanor Sterling officially joins the core executive committee of Sterling Enterprises!”

“Every major decision must have her approval!”

The room gasped in collective shock.

An eight-year-old on the core executive committee?

Every major decision needing her approval?

That was an astronomical level of importance and trust!

He was practically handing over half of the Sterling empire to me on the spot!

Uncle Robert’s face instantly drained of color.

He knew his chances of ever taking over were officially dead.

I looked down from my father's arms at the faces below—some ecstatic, some reverent, some jealous, some terrified.

But my heart remained perfectly calm.

I knew.

From today on.

My dream of being a useless rich kid was permanently, irreversibly dead.

And my very first executive decision involved the Wall Street wolf still shivering on the carpet.

I looked down at him from my father's arms and spoke casually.

“Dad, regarding this buyout.”

“I think we reject the three billion.”

“We keep the Southside real estate.”

“And there is absolutely no way they are touching our tech team.”

“Instead.”

I paused, my voice turning icy.

“We should send an aggressive legal team, armed with our terms, to fly back to New York with this man.”

My father looked at me, highly amused.

“Oh? Our terms? What terms?”

I smiled.

“Simple.”

“Their fund will issue a formal, public apology to Sterling Enterprises.”

“They will pay fifty million dollars in damages for the brand injury caused by their malicious shorting rumors.”

“And they will license the proprietary tech from that software company they acquired to us at a heavily discounted rate.”

“Otherwise.”

“When their cash flow officially breaks, we’ll be the ones acquiring them.”