Chapter 4 - The Boardroom Execution"You didn't come here just to reminisce," Roman said, his voice flattening into ice as he forced his breathing to steady. He adjusted his suit jacket, reclaiming a fraction of his composure. "If you wanted me dead, Victor, your men would have fired three minutes ago. If you wanted me arrested, Celeste, the feds would be kicking down the penthouse door right now."
Celeste offered a thin, humorless smile. "You're still as sharp as they say, Roman. No, we didn't come to kill you."
"We came to evict you," Victor corrected, walking over to Roman’s desk and casually picking up the financial ledger. He flipped through the pages with visible amusement. "As of midnight last night, the Vascari Holdings board of directors—every single one of whom was appointed or blackmailed by Celeste through her front companies—voted unanimously to oust you as CEO and majority shareholder."
Roman didn't flinch. He looked at Celeste. "You control the voting shares?"
"Seventy-one percent," she replied smoothly. "The remaining twenty-nine percent belongs to shell accounts currently being frozen by the Department of Justice, courtesy of the evidence I dropped off at the Federal Plaza this morning."
Marco let out a sharp breath. "Boss... all our offshore accounts... they're tied to those shell companies."
"I know," Roman said, never breaking eye contact with his wife. "She stripped us bare before she even packed her suitcase."
"Not bare," Celeste corrected softly, stepping closer, though Victor’s guards shifted nervously. "You still have your penthouse. You still have your clothes. You even have your life, Roman—something you’ve denied so many others."
"And my daughter?" Roman asked, his voice hardening, the underlying threat returning with a vengeance. "You think you can just take my child and walk away?"
"She is my daughter too," Celeste said fiercely, her protective hand tightening over her stomach. "And she will grow up far away from guns, blood, and men who think power is a substitute for a soul. You want to see her? You want a place in her life? Earn it. From the bottom up. Without the name Vascari, without the guns, and without the fear."
Victor chuckled, sliding the ledger back onto the desk. "Well, that's our cue, Celeste. The car is waiting downstairs. Don't keep the pilot waiting; Chicago air traffic gets messy this time of night."
Celeste turned toward the double doors, her coat swaying around her ankles. She paused at the threshold, glancing back one last time at the man she had loved, hated, and systematically destroyed.
"Goodbye, Roman," she whispered.
May you like
The doors clicked shut.
Roman stood alone in the vast, silent penthouse, the empire he had spent two decades bleeding for crumbling into dust around him.
