Early June 2009
The Phoenix Fund was shifting. Not shrinking under pressure, but tempering itself.
Ryan's new initiative, Project Obsidian, rolled out across every branch of their operation. Vendor contracts were reworked. A media strategist was hired. Team leads began meeting cross-functionally. Even Dylan started arriving at meetings five minutes early—a first.
But the calm didn't last.
The next fire came disguised as an opportunity.
---
The Bait: A Perfect Acquisition Deal
It arrived in Dylan's inbox via a boutique investment firm in Chicago, a group that claimed to represent a small but undervalued commercial property network across the Midwest.
Subject: "Joint Acquisition Opportunity – Time-Sensitive Portfolio Play"
Highlights of the Deal:
12 properties across Ohio and Indiana, mostly suburban retail and light industrial.
Bank-owned, recently reappraised, deeply discounted.
"No major competitors in play."
Close window: 10 business days.
On the surface, it was everything Phoenix Fund looked for: recession-scarred assets with community growth potential and high-margin upside.
Dylan pitched it excitedly.
Dylan Cho:
"If the numbers hold, this would double our cash flow footprint in six months. This is the kind of move that gets us national credibility."
But Leah hesitated.
Leah Montgomery:
"It's too neat. Too easy. Too fast. Since when do we get handed twelve prime properties in a recession with no competition?"
Ryan, who had been scanning the proposal in silence, looked up.
Ryan Keller:
"We don't. Not unless someone wants us to walk into something."
---
The Investigation
Over the next 48 hours, they did what they always did best—digged.
Ryan put their legal counsel on the property titles. Dylan reached out to a hedge fund contact in Indiana. Leah called three local community boards posing as a curious citizen.
What they found chilled the room.
Four of the properties were already under contract—with a firm called WhiteForge Holdings.
That firm was a shell. Its mailing address? Matched one used by Jordan Vance two years earlier.
The remaining properties had active code violations and were being held up in zoning disputes.
The "brokerage firm" that made the offer had no web presence until six weeks ago.
Dylan (throwing his pen down):
"This wasn't an offer. It was a landmine."
Leah:
"He wanted us to sign something. Look reckless. Then blow the whistle and watch us get buried in bad press and broken due diligence."
Ryan:
"And worse—he wanted to flush out our internal priorities. How we evaluate deals. Who we consult. He's testing our process."
They sat in silence. Then Ryan stood up, walked to the whiteboard, and circled the word "Reputation."
Ryan:
"Let's return the favor."
---
Absolutely. Here's the revised and more vicious version of the counter-attack in Chapter 22, showing a coordinated, devastating strike by Ryan, Leah, and Dylan that severely damages Jordan Vance's finances, investor relationships, and reputation—so much so that it drives him to retaliate with a lawsuit in the next chapter.
---
Phoenix Fund had endured enough. Jordan Vance's attempts to rattle them—through misinformation, sabotage, and now a fake acquisition deal—had crossed the line from clever to criminal.
Ryan Keller, Leah Montgomery, and Dylan Cho no longer saw him as a rival.
They saw him as a threat.
And threats got neutralized.
---
The Trap Within the Deal
After dissecting the acquisition offer, the truth emerged in pieces:
Six of the properties were involved in zoning fraud, their values artificially inflated by falsified inspection records—records created by a shell contracting agency tied back to Jordan's ghost firms.
Three others were under legal dispute between heirs, meaning any transaction would trigger probate litigation.
The remaining three had hidden environmental remediation issues—soil contamination and asbestos risks—buried under misleading summaries.
But the real kicker?
The entire offer was made using a "burner entity" funded with LP capital from NorthArc Partners—without disclosing the risk profile to its own investors.
Jordan had tried to bait Phoenix Fund into taking the fall for his fraud.
---
Project Obsidian, Phase II: Retaliation
Ryan didn't just want to survive the attack. He wanted to make sure Jordan never tried this again.
Step One: Legal and Financial Exposure
Leah and Dylan drafted a 28-page dossier with the help of their legal team:
It outlined Vance's conflict of interest in using NorthArc funds to orchestrate shell transactions.
It detailed the misrepresented property portfolios.
It included signed testimony from a junior analyst at WhiteForge Holdings, one of Jordan's puppet companies—anonymously confirming the strategy to "draw Phoenix into litigation-level liabilities."
They delivered it—anonymously—to:
Two of NorthArc's anchor LPs.
A real estate-focused regulatory body in Illinois.
A business ethics watchdog that had previously flagged NorthArc for soft compliance issues.
Fallout:
One LP immediately froze further disbursements. Another demanded the return of $1.4M in undisbursed funds pending investigation. NorthArc's general counsel scheduled an emergency meeting within 24 hours.
---
Step Two: Public Humiliation
Dylan leaked the entire acquisition email trail—including metadata tying it to Jordan—to a respected industry newsletter. But they didn't publish a blog.
They published a special report.
> "Shell Games & Scorched Earth: How a VC Strategist Used Fraud and Fabrication to Bait a Rising Fund"
Within two days, the piece went viral across LinkedIn, Substack, and multiple investment forums.
Jordan's name was tagged, quoted, and memed.
Even former classmates began reposting it with subtle but damning commentary.
"Didn't he pull the same thing back in '05?"
"This is what happens you build with ego instead of ethics."
---
Step Three: The Personal Blow
Leah called in a favor from Marcus Vaughn, the former vet who'd just launched his trade school with the help of her fund. He had a podcast that had recently picked up traction among blue-collar entrepreneurial circles.
They recorded a special episode:
"Why You Don't Sell Out Your Neighborhood – A Letter to Predators in Suits."
He never said Jordan's name.
But the quotes hit like punches.
> "You don't get to tear down a city from behind a spreadsheet and call it strategy."
"The difference between builders and leeches? One leaves something behind. The other just leaves."
It climbed into the top 50 in Apple's Entrepreneurship category within 48 hours.
---
Aftermath: A Shaken Empire
By the second week of June, the results were undeniable:
NorthArc's LP capital pool dropped by nearly $6.2 million in commitments.
Vance's "advisory" role was scrubbed from multiple websites.
WhiteForge Holdings filed for "voluntary dissolution" to get ahead of scrutiny.
And Jordan?
Jordan sat alone in a penthouse office with a half-drunk bottle of Oban and three missed calls from investors demanding answers.
His reputation was scorched.
His accounts—some frozen pending inquiry.
His control? Slipping fast.
---
Final Moves
Back at Phoenix HQ, Ryan stood over a new map of vetted investor candidates, partnership filters, and expansion locations. They weren't just growing. They were consolidating—smarter, tighter, harder to shake.
Ryan Keller:
"He wanted to find our weaknesses. He did. And now they're gone."
Dylan Cho:
"We just embarrassed a predator on a national stage. You know he's not going to take that lying down."
Ryan:
"No. He's going to try to bury us in paperwork and press."
He turned to Leah, who nodded slowly.
Leah Montgomery:
"Let him. We'll show up to court wearing smiles—and counterclaims."
Ryan smirked, tapping his pen against the glass table.
> "We didn't just defend our name. We sharpened our teeth."
--------------------------------------------------------