Chapter 172: The World Is Watching
By the end of the night, strategies were already in motion across the financial world.
At JP Morgan, the mandate was simple: secure every record, harden the walls around his Family Office, and quietly broaden the services tethered to him. Liam Scott was no longer just another private client. He was to be regarded — and protected — as if he were a sovereign power in his own right.
At Goldman Sachs, frustration quickly turned to opportunity. If they couldn’t win him in private banking, they would wedge themselves into his deals. Syndicates, IPO allocations, late-stage venture funding — wherever Liam put his capital, Goldman would circle, ready to insert itself.
In Silicon Valley, the big names moved faster than their reputations suggested. Applē, Gōōgle, Amazōn — all of them began their quiet outreach. Not through formal letters or public overtures, but through board members, venture capital backchannels, and discreet invitations to dinners and think-tank roundtables. If Liam was building something, they wanted a seat at his table.
Across the Atlantic, UBS, Credit Suisse, HSBC convened late-night calls of their own. The first order of business: identify if Liam was already hidden in their books. If he was, he would be shielded. If not, he would be hunted — courted aggressively before their rivals claimed him.
Even the giants of passive capital — BlackRock, Vanguard, Bridgewater — were stirred. Compliance teams began drafting dossiers, while quant desks quietly combed market data for his fingerprints, searching for subtle patterns of his buying and selling across billions in daily flows.
Everywhere, the conclusion was the same.
Liam Scott was no longer just a client. No longer just a boy with impossible toys. He was a market force — unpredictable, rising, and powerful.
And market forces were never ignored. They were courted, shielded, or fought... but never, ever ignored.
The panic wasn’t because Liam Scott existed. It wasn’t even because he was only eighteen. It was because of what he had just done in plain sight.
Most billionaires moved carefully when it came to large capital expenditures. A $500 million acquisition would normally take months of structuring, approvals, committees, and press strategy.
But Liam had just dropped half a billion dollars on a private Airbus A380 — a purchase so outrageous that even oil monarchs had failed to pull it off — and he had done it as casually as if he’d bought a sports car. That single act sent shockwaves through the industry.
If someone could lavish half a billion on an aircraft that wasn’t even supposed to exist in private hands, what else could he do? If he treated that kind of money as pocket change, how deep did his capital actually run?
Across Wall Street and Silicon Valley, one fact settled like gravity: this wasn’t just a rich teenager. This was a new center of capital — and everyone wanted to orbit him. And they will do whatever it takes to achieve that.
***
Meanwhile, there was a third group but they weren’t panicking. Instead, their eyes were shining because they had just been handed the juiciest story in years.
Forbes, Bloomberg, Financial Times and Wall Street Journal — the titans of financial journalism wasted no time.
At Forbes, the Billionaires List desk went into overdrive. Editors pointed at the screens showing Liam’s jet and his car.
"Find him," the editor-in-chief ordered. "If the FAA registry says Liam Scott, then I want his tax records, property purchases, and trust filings. We’ll confirm if he’s a billionaire, and if he is, he goes straight onto our radar. Youngest in history."
Researchers immediately began combing through state filings, real estate deeds, and SEC disclosures, their mandate clear: put Liam on the map.
At Bloomberg, the newsroom shifted like a machine.
"Terminal first," their senior editor barked. "Trace his name across custodian banks, nominee accounts, and offshore trusts. If he shows up in daily trading flows, I want to know it. Call your compliance contacts. Hit London, Singapore, and Zurich desks. He doesn’t exist at this scale without leaving fingerprints."
Reporters scattered, pulling favors with bankers, compliance officers, and hedge fund managers. Bloomberg’s goal wasn’t just a profile — it was to map his financial footprint across the world.
In London, at the Financial Times, the mood was sharper. "Get me people at Airbus, Mercedes, McLaren. Someone built those toys, and someone took those payments," the investigations editor said flatly.
"We’ll shake suppliers, subcontractors, even upholsterers. If this kid paid half a billion for a jet, the trail is there."
Correspondents picked up their phones, reaching out to aerospace consultants, legal firms, and government insiders. The FT wanted to know not just who Liam was — but how the machinery of global industry bent itself to build for him.
And at the Wall Street Journal, the directive was blunt. "We want the dirt. Everyone else will write him as a wunderkind. We don’t. We go harder. Find out if he’s fronting for someone. Sovereign money? Black budget? Get on the ground in Los Angeles, dig into Holmby Hills, talk to neighbors, call every lawyer and banker he’s touched. I want him on A1 within a week."
The Journal’s investigative team, veterans of exposing corporate frauds, leaned in with hungry eyes. They didn’t care if Liam was legitimate or not. They cared about the angle — and they would turn over every rock to get it.
Where governments scrambled and corporations froze, the press mobilized. To them, Liam Scott wasn’t a problem. He was the story of a generation.
And like all great stories, they knew the truth was buried somewhere beneath the noise.
Piece by piece, they would stitch together the outline of a figure who shouldn’t exist — an eighteen-year-old operating on a scale that belonged to sovereign wealth funds and royal dynasties.
And when they finally connected those threads in the coming days — when the world saw the numbers, the assets, the scale — the realization would rattle global finance itself.
Because Liam Scott wasn’t just wealthy. He wasn’t just a wunderkind with toys.
He was a force whose existence would challenge the very definition of power. He was the richest person in the world and the world wasn’t ready for that.
***
Meanwhile, Liam’s friends were stunned silence, watching the news footage over and over again.
Their phones were blowing up with calls and messages, but the truth was that they had exactly no idea what to say.
Their parents were also looking at them, waiting for answers but they have none. They could only sigh helplessly and hope that things will fade.
But unfortunately for them, things were just about to kick up. Their lives ahead was going to be nothing short of a rollercoaster ride.