"Monsieur Fontaine," she said, the beautiful language acting as a razor blade against Caldwell's ambitions.
She seamlessly provided the English translation for the rest of the table, her tone remaining completely detached and professional, as if she were simply reciting the daily specials:
"I am informing Mr. Fontaine that your projections for the Marseille port expansion are entirely fabricated. You have no intention of respecting European Union labor laws or the strict shipping regulations of CMA CGM. You plan to use shell companies in the Cayman Islands to bypass the French maritime syndicates—a move that will destroy Mr. Fontaine's hard-earned reputation with the working class in a matter of months."
Jean-Luc's jaw dropped. He looked at the paperwork sitting on the table, the contracts he had been mere minutes away from signing, as if they were suddenly covered in venom. He slowly picked up his solid gold Montblanc fountain pen, capped it with a decisive click, and placed it back into his breast pocket.
Caldwell was hyperventilating now. The smug, untouchable aura of the billionaire had completely shattered, leaving behind a pathetic, desperate man scrambling to stop the bleeding.
"Don't listen to her!" Caldwell pleaded, sweat beading on his forehead as he held his hands up in a placating gesture toward the Europeans. "She's a disgruntled employee! She's making all of this up! She's an uneducated waitress, for God's sake! She doesn't know anything about global logistics—"
Chloe ignored him. She turned her steely gaze directly to Klaus Richter.
"Herr Richter," she spoke in sharp, technical German. "Der Compliance-Verzicht, den er Ihnen aufdrängen will, ist keine Formalität. Es ist eine rechtliche Falle. Seine amerikanischen Schiffe fallen beim TÜV-Standard durch."
She switched back to English:
"Mr. Richter is a man of precision, Richard. So, I just explained to him that the compliance waiver you are trying to force him to sign is not a formality, but a legal trap. The moment he signs it, he transfers the entirety of the liability for your structural failures onto his own company, Richter Engineering. Your American cargo ships have routinely failed the TÜV safety standards. You don't want a partnership. You want his clean, European money to cover your massive, defaulting debts with Deutsche Bank."
Klaus's face turned into a mask of pure, unforgiving granite. The trap had been laid bare. He looked at Caldwell with a mixture of absolute disgust and profound pity. In the German business world, honor and structural integrity were not negotiable; Caldwell had just been exposed as a parasite trying to infect a healthy host.