Chapter 5 - The Masterclass in Ruin
I walked into the boardroom with measured, deliberate steps, my heels clicking sharply against the polished hardwood. I didn't hide behind Dominic. I stepped directly to the head of the conference table, pulling a leather chair out and taking a seat with the relaxed posture of a supreme judge presiding over a courtroom.
“Hello, Julian,” I said calmly. “You’ve gained weight. Too much catered lunch on the corporate jet, I assume?”
Julian’s jaw worked soundlessly for a few seconds. He glanced at the other board members, whose expressions ranged from confusion to sudden wariness, before locking onto Dominic, who remained standing behind my chair with an imposing, silent stillness.
“Dominic, what is the meaning of this?” Julian sputtered, attempting an arrogant laugh that came out thin and reedy. “Do you know who this woman is? This is Nora Vance! She’s a disgraced former bureaucrat who was convicted of corporate espionage and embezzlement! She’s a criminal!”
“Actually, Julian,” Dominic said, his deep baritone rumbling through the room with terrifying authority, “she is the newly appointed Chief Compliance and Acquisitions Officer for the Vale Logistics Group. And every single proposal you present to this board must pass through her hands before I sign a single dollar into escrow.”
A collective gasp rippled around the table.
Julian’s face flushed an ugly, mottled crimson. “This is a joke. She doesn’t have the authority—she doesn’t even have a valid state license! I personally saw to it that the licensing board revoked her credentials!”
“Under false testimony supported by fabricated server logs,” I interrupted smoothly, opening the leather portfolio that Dominic had handed me earlier.
Inside were twenty pages of freshly unsealed banking records from the Cayman Islands and internal memo drafts from Montgomery Agri-Chemicals, provided directly from the private files Mateo had confiscated from Pierce Carrington’s safe that morning.
“It turns out,” I continued, looking directly into Julian’s panic-stricken eyes, “that your shipping contracts through Pierce Carrington’s dockland facilities weren't moving organic fertilizer at all. You were moving unrefined industrial solvents through municipal transit lines, bypassing federal hazardous materials taxes. You paid Pierce ten million dollars to look the other way. And when the Carringtons needed cash to cover their debts, you offered to buy Dominic’s logistics network out from under him using the same shell company that framed me.”
The board members immediately began murmuring among themselves, leaning away from Julian’s slide deck as if it had caught fire.
“That’s slander!” Julian yelled, slamming his palms onto the glass table. “You have no proof! You’re a bitter, obese ex-fiancée trying to extract a settlement because I dumped you!”
Before Julian’s hands could even lift from the glass, Dominic moved.
It happened so fast nobody in the room had time to react. Dominic crossed the room in two strides, seized Julian by the throat with one hand, and slammed him down across the conference table with enough violence to crack the surface laminate. Water glasses tipped over, spilling across Julian’s glossy presentation charts.
“Speak about her weight, her name, or her character again,” Dominic hissed into Julian’s ear, his fingers tightening until Julian began clawing frantically at Dominic’s iron grip, his legs kicking uselessly beneath the table, “and I will have you fed into the industrial compactor at the South Docks before lunch. Do you understand me?”
Julian choked, his eyes bulging as he nodded desperately.
Dominic released him with disgust, tossing him backward into his chair like a sack of garbage. Julian slumped over, gasping for air and rubbing his bruised throat, weeping from shock and terror.
“Here is what is going to happen, Mr. Montgomery,” I said, resting my elbows on the table and lacing my fingers together with ice-cold poise. “By five o’clock today, you will sign a full sworn affidavit detailing how you forged the state evidence against me. You will submit it to the State Attorney General alongside the complete audit trails I’ve just flagged in your system. In exchange, Mr. Vale will allow you to surrender your fifty-one percent controlling stake in Montgomery Agri-Chemicals to the Vale holding company for one dollar.”
Julian looked up, horrified. “One dollar? That’s my family’s entire legacy! That’s worth eighty million!”
“You should have thought about your family’s legacy before you tried to poison Dominic Vale and framed the only woman smart enough to balance your books,” I replied coldly. “Take the deal, Julian. Because if you don’t, the federal warrants will be served at your penthouse before midnight, and the Moretti family will be waiting for you in county lockup.”
May you like
Julian stared at me, then at Dominic, who was adjusting his cuffs with terrifying indifference.
Broken and utterly defeated, Julian reached into his coat for a pen.
