Chapter 6 - The Boardroom Battlefield
The corporate headquarters of Vance Holdings was an oppressive tower of marble and dark mahogany. As I walked into the executive boardroom on the forty-second floor, the clicking of my heels was the only sound against the heavy silence. I still wore a slight compression wrap around my right ankle, but I didn't use a cane. I stood tall, dressed in a sharp navy power suit, my hair pulled back to expose the faint pink scar above my left eyebrow—a permanent reminder of the price of dependency.
At the far end of the table sat my mother and Chloe, flanked by a flashy, cheap television lawyer named Richard Sterling. Eleanor had managed to scrape together enough money from selling her remaining designer handbags to retain him.
"This meeting is irregular," Sterling announced, slamming a hand onto the table before Grandfather could even call the session to order. "My client, Eleanor Vance, is the rightful heir to the legacy shares of her late husband. We have filed a formal injunction to freeze the transfer of proxy votes to Avery Vance, pending a psychiatric evaluation of the patriarch, Arthur Vance."
The board members—old men with silver hair and calculators for hearts—muttered among themselves, shifting uncomfortably in their leather chairs.
I took my seat at the right hand of my grandfather, opening my laptop with a smooth, unbothered click.
"Mr. Sterling," I said, my voice echoing with the absolute authority of a senior litigation partner. "You are welcome to file whatever injunction you like. But before you do, let’s discuss the concept of corporate embezzlement."
I pressed a key, and the large projector screen on the wall lit up with thousands of financial transactions.
"Over the last forty-eight hours, my forensic team has uncovered that for the past forty-eight months, Eleanor Vance has been using a corporate gas card and an executive expense account tied to Vance Holdings to fund personal travel, including luxury hotel stays in Miami and—ironically—a nonrefundable Caribbean cruise. Totaling one hundred and twelve thousand dollars of company funds without board approval."
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The room went dead silent. Eleanor’s face turned a violent shade of ash.
"That is a felony, Mr. Sterling," I leaned forward, my eyes locking onto my mother’s trembling form. "So here is my counter-proposal: you drop the injunction, you sign a total waiver of all future claims to the Vance estate, or I hand this drive to the federal prosecutor standing right outside that door."
