Chapter 6 - THE AFTERMATH IN THE BOARDROOMForty-eight hours after the aborted wedding, the emergency board meeting of Crestwell Holdings was convened in the executive penthouse suite downtown.
The atmosphere in the room was thicker than wet cement.
My father sat at the head of the long mahogany table, looking ten years older than he had on Saturday. His skin had a grayish tint, and his hands shook as he tried to adjust his gold-rimmed glasses. Beatrice sat to his right, staring blankly at her manicured fingernails, refusing to look at anyone.
Sienna wasn't there. She had locked herself in her penthouse apartment, refusing phone calls, food, and visitors.
The heavy oak doors swung open, and I walked in.
I wasn't wearing my casual clothes or my courtroom pantsuit. I wore a sharp, charcoal-gray Chanel blazer, carrying a thick leather portfolio embossed with my own initials.
I pulled out the chair directly opposite my father—the seat that had belonged to the company’s chief executive officer.
“You shouldn't be here, Eleanor,” Richard croaked, his voice lacking its old authority. “This is a private board meeting for voting shareholders. You liquidated your position months ago.”
I offered a thin, glacial smile, opening my portfolio and sliding a stack of legal documents across the polished wood toward him.
“Did I, Father?” I asked softly. “Or did you execute a fraudulent stock transfer using a forged signature while I was unconscious in the ICU following a car accident?”
Richard flinched. The color drained entirely from his face.
“Forensic document analysis,” I continued, leaning forward and resting my elbows on the table, “coupled with IP logs from your home office computer, proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that those transfer documents were signed by you, using an electronic key stolen from my laptop while I was in surgery.”
“Eleanor, please,” Beatrice whispered, her voice cracking as she finally looked up. “We’re your family. We made a mistake. Arthur manipulated us—he charmed us, he blinded us! We can fix this together. You can come back to the company as COO. We can restore the family name—”
“The family name?” I let out a short, cold laugh that made both of them shrink back in their chairs. “What family name, Mother? You traded it away for a man in a bespoke suit who turned out to be a criminal. You tried to throw me under the bus to satisfy your social climbing delusions.”
I slid one final document across the table. It was a single sheet of paper bearing the official seal of the state prosecutor's office and the corporate registry.
“What is this?” Richard muttered, his hands trembling as he picked it up.
“That,” I said, standing up and buttoning my blazer, “is a restraining order protecting me from your harassment, accompanied by an emergency injunction freezing all Crestwell Holdings corporate assets pending a full federal audit.”
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My father dropped the paper as if it were burning hot coal. “You... you’re trying to destroy the company your grandfather built?”
“No, Father,” I corrected him, looking down at him with absolute calm. “I’m taking back what my grandfather built. And as of ten minutes ago, thanks to the voting shares assigned back to me by the federal court and the proxy votes signed over by the minority board members who finally realized you drove this company into the ground... I am the majority shareholder and the new Chief Executive Officer of Crestwell Holdings.”
