Chapter 14 - ExileBy evening, the once-mighty Adrian Whitmore was escorted out of his own skyscraper by private security, his access badges deactivated, his personal accounts frozen pending a federal receivership review.
The media vultures swarmed the plaza outside, flashing cameras blinding him as he climbed into a rented sedan. He didn't look at them. He stared straight ahead, his mind racing through the impossible puzzle.
Clara had given Julian the company? No. It didn't make sense. Clara hated Julian even more than she hated Vanessa. She knew what Julian’s syndicate had tried to do years ago.
Adrian pulled out an old, encrypted burner phone—the one number he had kept hidden from everyone, the emergency line. He dialed a sequence of numbers from memory.
It rang once. Twice. Three times.
Then, a cool, crisp voice answered on the other end.
"If you’re calling to beg for your shares back, Adrian, you’re wasting your international roaming charges."
"Clara," Adrian breathed, gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. "What did you just do? Do you have any idea what Julian has done? He just staged a hostile takeover using your shares!"
There was a soft, amused chuckle on the other end of the line.
"Of course I know, Adrian. I helped write the contract."
Adrian froze. The background noise on her end didn't sound like a quiet Swiss café; it sounded like the bustling trading floor of the Zurich Stock Exchange.
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"You... you helped him?" Adrian stammered, the ground completely disappearing from beneath his feet. "Why would you hand our life's work to your worst enemy?"
"It’s not our life’s work anymore, Adrian," Clara’s voice dropped its teasing tone, turning razor-sharp and ice-cold. "It was a Trojan horse. And right now, Julian has just dragged it right inside his own fortress."
