He swung his hand with everything he had, his face contorted in a sneer of absolute certainty. He expected the sound of skin hitting skin, followed by sobbing, begging, and submission.

Arthur Sterling slammed his fist on the table. "Marcus Vance has been trying to hostile-takeover Vanguard for three years! If he has been using our internal accounts to bleed us dry, this is an act of corporate warfare!"

"It's worse than that, Arthur," I said calmly. "Marcus isn't just trying to bankrupt Vanguard. He sent his men here today to retrieve the physical drive containing the master ledgers."

Right on cue, the boardroom doors swung open with a heavy thud.

In walked Marcus Vance, wearing an immaculate double-breasted gray suit, flanked by four men in tailored coats whose posture clearly indicated concealed firearms.

"What a touching family gathering," Marcus purred, his voice like gravel scraping over glass. He cast a dismissive glance at Gregory, who was practically hiding under his chair, before locking eyes with me. "Elena. You look just like your father before he lost everything."

"Marcus," I said, standing tall behind the podium without a flinch. "You're trespassing on secure corporate property."

"Am I?" Marcus chuckled softly, taking a pair of leather gloves from his pocket and slowly pulling them onto his hands. "I own forty percent of the voting shares of this company as of twenty minutes ago, my dear. I bought out the European syndicate blocks."

He turned to look at Gregory. "And as for my weak, pathetic nephew... I see you failed to obtain the decryption keys from her. No matter. I'll take them myself."

One of Marcus's armed guards stepped forward, reaching into his jacket.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," I said, my voice dangerously calm.

Marcus laughed out loud. "What are you going to do, Elena? File an audit complaint against me? Threaten me with a lawsuit? You're an analyst standing in a room full of suits."

"I am an analyst," I agreed, reaching beneath the podium desk and pressing a small red tactile button built into the underside. "But you forgot one detail about this building, Marcus."

"Oh? And what's that?"

"My father designed the architectural security layout for this entire tower twenty years ago," I said, as the heavy steel emergency fire shutters suddenly slammed down over every window and exit door with a deafening CRASH, sealing the boardroom off from the rest of the world.

The lights flipped to emergency red.