Chapter 76
On his way home, Stephen was struck by a thought.
Ethan talked about raising North Hill City’s GDP to a trillion dollars in six months. However, he did not mention the GDP before the increase. What if it was 999 billion dollars?
Back at home, Stephen shared his doubts with George.
“What was North Hill City’s GDP when Ethan took over? I have no idea. Look into it.”
Stephen tasked his team to dig up records. He was curious about Ethan’s contribution to the city’s GDP.
The information soon came along, and Stephen opened the file, stunned.
“What was the GDP?”
Curious, George looked over and also found himself taken aback. They both froze in a shell- shocked position for three whole minutes.
It was 30 million dollars. North Hill City’s GDP was worth 30 million dollars when Ethan started running Riveria.
The number filled Stephen with dread. If Ethan raised North Hill City’s GDP from 30 million dollars to one trillion dollars in just six months, it meant North Hill City progressed without issues until the incident with Shawn.
Stephen now understood why Ethan had stopped talking earlier. As it turned out, Ethan found it beneath him to converse with Stephen
Stephen immediately deleted the file, losing the courage to read it.
Snapping out of his thoughts, George said while breathing heavily, “This can’t be right. He must’ve falsified the numbers.
“There’s no way he could’ve driven North Hill City’s growth in just six months. He could have put a more realistic number.‘
Stephen nodded in agreement and tried to calm his nerves by downing a glass of water. Before he could get his act together, his phone rang.
He grabbed his phone for a look and saw it was a call from North Hill City.
“What now?” Stephen answered the call.
“Things are bad. North Hill City is in trouble again.”
Stephen was dumbfounded. Here came another problem.
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Chapter 76
+25 BONUS
“What happened?”
He was overwhelmed by the endless disasters occurring in North Hill City.
“We can’t reach Danny, the new mayor, and his family!”
“What?”
Stephen went limp when he heard Danny had gone off the grid. It was the same trick Shawn, Eric, and Brandon had pulled the last time, so he started to feel uneasy.
“We’ve learned that Danny has pulled the same stunt as Brandon from Lytton, selling off properties that haven’t been built.”
Not again!
Stephen was devastated that Danny would adopt the same approach as Brandon. Yet, more people still fell for it.
“Danny offered perks to attract factories into the city.”
E
Stephen asked frustratedly, “Isn’t that a good thing?”
The person on the la
other end of the line replied, “He lied about the perks, though, and
scammed these businesses out of their money.
“He even smuggled many foreign workers to work at the factories and took locals seeking job opportunities out of the country.”
Stephen was lost for words. He had nothing to say at that point.
It was a chain of scams that lined Danny’s pockets with money, and Danny was more brutal than Brandon’s crew.
“He even lent money at high interest rates, squeezing money out of the legitimate businesses.”
Chills ran down Stephen’s spine. He was furious and scared all at once.
Danny was more savage than Shawn and the others. He basically took everything but the kitchen sink.
The man drove out the locals, took their money, crushed legitimate businesses, and smuggled foreign workers in, all of which would shake the very foundations of North Hill City.
“We estimate the city’s financial loss at around 80 billion dollars. We’re talking about a 300 billion loss in GDP.‘
