Chapter 4 - The Public Fall
The emergency board meeting at Rourke Regional Mobility’s downtown Bethesda headquarters was brief and brutal.
Cassandra walked into the top-floor boardroom accompanied by her own lead corporate attorney, Arthur Pendelton—a legendary veteran of corporate restructuring who had remained quietly on retainer for over a decade.
When Gavin entered the room with Philip Dane, the board members didn't even stand up.
"Gavin," the board chairman declared, shaking his head in disbelief. "We’ve just verified the legal filings. The algorithms driving our entire delivery network are held under an exclusive, revocable license owned entirely by your wife's private holding company. You presented these assets to us as corporate property during our Series B round."
"It was an administrative arrangement!" Gavin pleaded, sweating profusely through his charcoal suit. "Cassandra is my wife. The prenup—"
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"The prenup proves you have zero ownership stake in the underlying tech," Arthur Pendelton interrupted smoothly, sliding a document across the conference table. "And because Mr. Rourke misrepresented the firm's asset structure to investors, he is in material breach of his executive contract."
Before six o’clock that evening, the board voted unanimously to terminate Gavin Rourke as CEO for cause, removing his voting rights and freezing his corporate stock options pending a full forensic audit.
