Chapter 7 - The Hostile Takeover"On the contrary, Mother," I said, stepping into the center of the boardroom floor, my voice echoing off the floor-to-ceiling glass windows that overlooked the frozen expanse of Manhattan. "For the first time in thirty-two years, my mind is completely clear."
Arthur Cartwright stood up, his face flushing a furious crimson. "This is an outrage! My daughter was humiliated publicly last night while you were entertaining... whoever these vagrants are!"
"Watch your mouth, Arthur," I snapped, the authority in my voice cutting through the room like a whip. "Unless you want your company’s bailout records projected onto the main presentation screen behind you."
Arthur blanched, instantly collapsing back into his leather chair without another word.
Eleanor stepped forward, her eyes narrowing as she looked past me to Mara. "You should have stayed in Zurich, girl. You were paid well enough to keep your mouth shut."
"She didn't take a dime, Mother," I said smoothly, pulling the sleek corporate data drive from my pocket and placing it squarely in the center of the mahogany table. "You forged the paperwork, you paid off the clinic, and you fabricated an exile to secure a corporate merger that benefited your stock portfolio."
"That is a baseless accusation," Eleanor hissed, her patrician composure finally fraying at the edges as murmurs broke out among the surrounding board members. "Security! Remove these intruders from the premises immediately!"
None of the security guards near the doors moved. They had spent the morning reading the leaked financial dossiers that had automatically distributed to every major media outlet in the city five minutes before we walked in. The empire was bleeding out in real-time.
"You can't remove the majority stakeholders, Eleanor," I said quietly, walking over to the side of the table and placing my hand gently on Milo’s small shoulder. "Under corporate charter rule 4-B, any direct male heirs to the CEO possess collective veto power over executive board decisions when fraud or financial misconduct is proven."
Milo looked up at me, blinking with those identical gray-blue eyes, and parroted the phrase I had taught him in the car: "We vote no on Grandma."
May you like
A collective gasp echoed around the boardroom table.
Eleanor Whitaker gripped the edge of the mahogany table so tightly her knuckles turned bone-white. For the first time in her life, the queen of Manhattan was checkmated.
