Chapter 5 - The Corporate Vultures
The shift in my priorities did not go unnoticed. By Monday morning, the news of my sudden absence from Harrison International had reached the board of directors. Worse, someone within the hospital network had leaked the records of Anna Whitmore’s transfer to the Harrison Memorial Wing, along with the digital copy of the birth certificate I had filed with our family trust lawyers to secure her medical funding.
I was sitting in the private family lounge at Northwestern Hospital, watching Sophie color at a small table, when the door banged open.
In walked my cousin, Julian Harrison. Julian was the head of our legal department and a man who viewed the family fortune as his personal retirement fund. Behind him were two other senior board members, their faces grim, carrying thick leather briefcases.
"Michael," Julian sneered, slamming a folder onto the coffee table in front of me. "What the hell is this? We’ve been waiting for you at the office for three days. The Vanguard deal is falling apart, and instead, we find out you're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of company funds on a charity case from the South Side?"
I stood up slowly, stepping between Julian and Sophie. The little girl stopped coloring, her eyes wide with fear as she looked at the angry men in suits. "Go to the nurse's station for a minute, Sophie," I said softly, my voice deceptively calm. "Ask Ms. Gable for some orange juice."
Once she slipped out, I turned to Julian. The air in the room dropped ten degrees. "First of all, Julian, those are my personal funds, not company assets. Second of all, you enter a hospital room with that tone again, and I’ll have security throw you through the plate-glass windows."
"Personal funds?" Julian laughed, a sharp, ugly sound. "Michael, you’ve filed a legal notice to include this... this illegitimate girl and her child into the Harrison Family Trust! That trust controls forty percent of our voting shares! If she is recognized as Richard’s daughter, her child becomes a legal heir. Our stock value will plummet if the public thinks some gold-digging secretary’s daughter can claim a third of the company!"
"She isn't a gold-digger, Julian. She’s my sister," I said, my fists clenching at my sides.
"She’s a dying woman who used a child to manipulate you into a handout!" Julian hissed, leaning in. "We’ve already hired a private investigator, Michael. We know she’s been living in a shelter. We know she’s broke. We’re filing an injunction tomorrow morning to freeze any trust distributions to her or the child. We’re going to prove undue influence. You're losing your mind because you're lonely, Michael, but the board will not let you destroy this company for a forty-five-dollar sob story."
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I looked at my cousin—a man I had shared holidays with, a man who had been raised in the same privilege I had. All he saw when he looked at a dying woman and a starving child was a threat to his portfolio.
"Try it," I whispered, my voice cutting through his anger like a razor blade. "File the injunction, Julian. And by noon tomorrow, I’ll exercise my majority voting rights to remove you as General Counsel. I’ll liquidate my personal shares, tank the stock myself, and leave you with nothing but a pile of worthless paper. You think you know how to be ruthless because you read it in a law book? I built this empire. Don't test what I will do to protect my family."
