Chapter 6 - The Boardroom BattleThe mahogany boardroom on the fifth floor smelled of old leather, polished wax, and looming disaster.
Thirteen members of the Centennial Museum Board of Directors sat around the massive oval table. At the head sat Arthur Sterling, an 80-year-old steel magnate who had served on the board since before Edward was born. To his right sat Peter Maddox’s uncle, Senator Thomas Vance, whose face was twisted into a mask of calculated fury.
Edward Hale sat at the opposite end of the table, completely relaxed, his fingers steepled beneath his chin.
And standing beside him, holding a thick leather-bound dossier, was Mara.
"This is completely irregular!" Senator Vance barked, slamming his hand onto the table. "Firing the senior curator of historical exhibitions without board approval? And elevating a mid-level coordinator to Director of Special Exhibitions overnight? Edward, have you completely lost your mind?"
"My mind is perfectly clear, Thomas," Edward replied, his voice annoyingly calm. "And as the primary benefactor holding eighty percent voting equity in this trust, I don't require board approval to clean out incompetent management. However, out of respect for this institution, I invited Miss Ellis here to present the findings of her departmental audit."
Arthur Sterling peered over his thick-rimmed glasses at Mara. "Young lady, you realize the gravity of these accusations against Mr. Maddox?"
Mara stepped forward, opening her dossier. The room was suffocatingly quiet. Every eye was locked on her—no longer invisible, no longer pushed to the background.
"I have complete documentation, Mr. Sterling," Mara began, her voice ringing clear and steady in the cavernous room. She clicked a remote, and the projector screen behind the board lit up with financial spreadsheets, falsified budget reports, and side-by-side comparisons of stolen exhibit concepts.
For the next twenty minutes, Mara dismantled Peter Maddox’s entire professional career piece by piece. She showed how funds allocated for artifact restoration were diverted into unnecessary administrative bonuses, how historical narratives were watered down for corporate sponsors, and how her own creative proposals had been systematically suppressed.
Senator Vance’s face turned the color of a ripe plum. "Baseless slander!" he shouted as Mara displayed an email chain proving Maddox had plagiarized her work.
"It’s not slander, Senator," a deep, seductive voice whispered from the doorway.
May you like
The heavy oak doors swung open, and a woman in an emerald silk dress stepped into the room. It was Victoria Vance—Senator Vance’s daughter, and the chief legal counsel for the rival Sterling-Vance Media conglomerate.
"Because I have independently verified every single file on that screen," Victoria said with a predatory smile, walking straight to the table. "And my firm is already preparing the federal fraud indictment against Peter Maddox."
