Chapter 3 - The Boardroom Raid
The boardroom of the Reyes Group on the forty-eighth floor was an architectural weapon. The walls were sheer panels of dark gray slate, and the central table was a thirty-foot piece of single-pour structural concrete that had been crane-lifted into the building before the roof was sealed.
Victor Reyes, Dominic’s maternal uncle and the owner of a twenty percent block of the company’s preferred stock, sat at the opposite end of the concrete table. He was sixty-two, with the thick neck of an old-school dock boss and the expensive dental work of a man who spent his winters in Palm Beach. Around him sat four senior board members, their faces tight with corporate anxiety.
"You brought a bastard into the ledger, Dominic," Victor said, his voice booming across the slate panels before the doors had even fully closed behind Dominic. "We’ve spent five years positioning the group for the IPO. The Wall Street underwriters are looking at our governance structure. You can't just hand the voting rights of our primary deep-water asset to a five-year-old girl whose mother was a city clerk."
Dominic didn't sit down. He walked to the head of the concrete table, his hands resting on the back of his leather chair. "Elena Vasquez wasn't just a clerk, Victor. She was the entity that kept your third-quarter logistics filings from being sent to the internal revenue service three years ago. If she hadn't managed the Nautilus ledger, you’d be spending your retirement in a minimum-security facility in Terre Haute."
Victor’s face flushed a deep, violent purple. "The board has a right to challenge the guardianship. The corporate bylaws state that any material asset change over fifty million dollars requires a two-thirds vote of the executive committee."
"The asset didn't change," Dominic said, his voice dropping into a quiet, rhythmic precision. "The asset was always hers. The trust simply activated the execution clause upon her mother's death. I am not acquiring the Calumet Yard, Victor. I am preventing the state from seizing it. If you challenge my guardianship in open court, the Nautilus filings become public record. Do you want the SEC looking at the shipping manifests from the 2024 winter cycle?"
The four board members looked down at their tablets simultaneously. No one spoke. The 2024 winter manifests contained the documentation for twenty-two unregistered container ships that had entered the Chicago port under the cover of a localized network blackout—ships that had carried the raw steel that built the foundation of Reyes Tower itself.
"You’re playing with fire, nephew," Victor hissed, his hands tightening into fists over his leather folder. "A child is a vulnerability. The Valetti family in North Chicago has been looking for a crack in our logistics wall for three years. The moment they realize you have a five-year-old girl living in this tower, she becomes a currency."
"The tower is secure," Dominic said.
As if on cue, the heavy walnut doors of the boardroom clicked open. Sophia walked in, her purple suitcase clicking against the raised steel thresholds of the floor. She had removed her yellow raincoat, revealing her green dinosaur dress, and she was currently carrying a small plastic tray containing two half-eaten chicken nuggets and a container of honey mustard that she had apparently obtained from the executive kitchen staff.
She walked straight down the length of the thirty-foot concrete table, completely ignoring the senior board members, and stopped right next to Victor Reyes.
She looked at his expensive watch—a platinum Patek Philippe—and then looked up at his red, angry face. "You have grease on your collar," she said, her voice echoing perfectly off the slate walls.
Victor froze, looking down at the little girl as if she were a biological weapon that had landed on his expensive suit. "Dominic," he growled. "Get this thing out of my meeting."
Sophia didn't wait for Dominic to respond. She reached up and set her tray of chicken nuggets directly onto Victor’s pristine leather-bound agenda folder, the honey mustard container tipping over slightly to smear across the gold-embossed logo of the Reyes Group. "You look like the man from the television," Sophia added, her dark eyes wide with analytical interest. "The one who goes to jail because he forgot to pay for his car."
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Felix, who had entered behind her, had to turn his head completely toward the slate wall to hide the sudden, violent twitch of his mouth.
Dominic looked down the length of the table at his uncle. "The meeting is adjourned, Victor. My daughter needs to finish her lunch."
