Chapter 3 - The Board Room Coup
Julian pulled out his phone, his thumb hammering furiously against the screen. He held the device to his ear, pacing behind his high-backed leather chair while the guests watched him like spectators at a car crash.
"Marcus, pick up," Julian muttered into the receiver, his voice trembling with manic desperation. "Marcus! Why is my access card flagged at the central tower? What do you mean the server migration started at six?"
He pulled the phone away from his ear, staring at the darkened screen as the line went dead. Marcus was the chief operating officer Julian had handpicked two years ago. What Julian didn't know was that Marcus had worked for my father for fifteen years before the merger. Loyalty in business isn't bought with an arrogant smirk; it is earned through decency, and Julian had spent eight years treating our staff like dirt beneath his designer loafers.
"What did Marcus say?" Celeste asked, her aristocratic mask completely shattered. She stood up, knocking her purse to the floor. Platinum compacts and diamond lipstick cases spilled across the carpet, but nobody bothered to pick them up.
"He hung up on me," Julian whispered. He looked at me, his eyes bloodshot, veins bulging along his neck. "What did you do, Ava? What the hell did you do?"
"I called an emergency board meeting for seven-thirty tonight," I explained, checking the vintage Cartier watch my father had given me for my eighteenth birthday. "It’s currently eight-fifteen. By unanimous vote of the minority shareholders—backed by my sixty-two percent controlling stake through Vance Holdings—you have been stripped of the CEO title and removed from the board of directors."
"You can't remove me!" Julian roared, stepping toward my chair.
Before he could take two steps, two large men in dark charcoal suits stepped out from behind the heavy velvet curtains framing the private dining room. They were not hotel security. They were private detail from Vance Logistics, men who had guarded my family's docks and warehouses for decades. They positioned themselves silently between Julian and my chair.
Sloane was hyperventilating now. She looked down at her bare fingers, then glared furiously at Julian. "You told me you were worth three hundred million dollars! You told me you would buy me the penthouse on Park Avenue once you served her the divorce papers!"
"Shut your mouth, you gold-digging parasite!" Julian snarled, turning his venom on the woman he had just crowned with stolen diamonds.
May you like
"Me? A parasite?" Sloane shrieked, her voice echoing off the vaulted ceilings. She reached out and snatched a crystal wine glass, hurling it across the table. It shattered against Julian’s chest, splashing crimson Pinot Noir across his crisp white shirt and silk tie. "You begged me to come tonight! You said you wanted to crush her spirit so she wouldn't fight the settlement!"
The twenty-four high-society guests began scrambling for their coats. Nobody wanted to be caught in the blast radius of the Hale family's catastrophic implosion. Julian stood frozen, covered in wine, looking like a slaughtered animal in the center of his own celebration.
