Chapter 3 - The Boardroom TrapThe next morning, while the media was having a frenzy over the scandal surrounding Vanessa's arrest, I called an emergency board meeting at Caldwell Systems headquarters in downtown Denver.
I walked into the glass penthouse boardroom wearing the same dark suit from the night before. Marcus Vance, my long-time friend and Vice President, stood up with an expression of deep sympathy.
"Julian, my brother!" Marcus walked over with open arms. "I saw the news! It’s horrendous what that woman did to the girls! If I had known Vanessa was capable of such cruelty, I would have stepped in months ago!"
I looked into his eyes—the eyes of a man I had known since college, a man I had made a multi-millionaire.
"Did you know she was starving them, Marcus?" I asked softly, stepping past him to take my seat at the head of the table.
"Of course not!" Marcus exclaimed, turning to the rest of the board members. "Gentlemen, Julian has been through an unimaginable personal tragedy. Given the emotional stress and the ongoing police investigation, I propose that the board temporarily transfer executive voting rights to me until Julian can recover."
A few board members nodded in agreement. They looked at me with pity.
I leaned back in my leather chair, placed my hands together, and smiled slowly.
"That’s a very generous offer, Marcus," I said. "Unfortunate, though, that you need my signature to transfer those rights—and you were hoping Vanessa would forge it for you last night while I was supposed to be trapped in an artificial weather delay in Chicago."
Marcus’s fake smile faded. "What are you talking about?"
I pressed a button on the conference remote. The motorized blinds closed, and the giant display screen illuminated the dark room.
Audio began playing through the high-fidelity speakers:
Marcus's Voice: "Make sure the girls are weak enough that Julian panics when he sees them. If he's focused on a family tragedy, he won't look at the quarterly audit for the server migration." Vanessa's Voice: "He’s coming home tonight, Marcus. What if he finds the basement setup?" Marcus's Voice: "He won't. I paid the air traffic controllers to ground his private jet in Illinois for 24 hours. You have all night to sign the patent transfer papers using the biometric silicone duplicate of his thumbprint."
The entire boardroom went dead silent. Marcus's face turned completely gray.
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"You didn't account for one thing, Marcus," I said, standing up and towering over him. "I didn't take my jet. I drove through the blizzard for twelve hours straight because my daughter Emma sent me a text that said: 'Daddy, it's cold.'"
CHAPTER 3 HOOK: Marcus thought his corporate coup had failed, but he pulled out his final card—a legal document that proved I wasn't the biological father of my four daughters.
