Chapter 3 - THE GHOSTS OF THE BOARDROOM
The corner office had not changed in eight years.
It still smelled of cedarwood,
expensive tobacco,
and the crushing weight of ego.
I walked to the floor-to-ceiling window and looked out at the city.
The lights were flickering on,
thousands of tiny fires burning in the dark.
I heard the door open behind me.
I didn't have to turn around to know who it was.
The heavy,
rhythmic footfalls were unmistakable.
“You think you’re clever,”
Victor said.
His voice was no longer shaking;
it had hardened into a cold,
deadly edge.
I turned slowly.
He was standing by the mahogany desk,
the one he had sat behind when he told me I was incompetent.
“I think I’m the owner of this building,
Victor,”
I replied.
“Which makes you a trespasser.”
He laughed,
a dry,
hollow sound.
“You used the money I gave you for your trust fund to build this?
You used my own resources to stab me in the back?”
I laughed too,
and the sound surprised him.
“My trust fund?
Victor,
you froze that account the day I was escorted out of here.
Did you forget?
You told the bank I was mentally unstable.
You made sure I didn't have a penny of 'Hollister money' to my name.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Then where?
How?”
“I built a firm that specialized in finding the cracks you left behind,”
I said,
walking toward him until only the desk separated us.
“Every time you bullied a smaller company into a merger,
I was there,
buying their distressed assets.
Every time you ignored a technological shift because you were too proud to change,
I invested in the startups that were destined to replace you.
I didn't use your money.
I used your arrogance.”
He looked down at the desk,
his hand hovering over the surface.
“This company is my life,
Cate.
I built this from nothing.”
“You built it from the bones of people you stepped on,”
I snapped.
“Including me.
You didn't just fire me.
You blacklisted me.
You told every CEO in the city that I was a thief.
You tried to bury me.”
I leaned over the desk,
mirroring the pose he had used a thousand times to intimidate his subordinates.
“But you forgot one thing about the daughter you raised.
I don't stay buried.”
He looked up,
and for a moment,
I saw a flash of the father I used to love.
The man who had taught me how to read a balance sheet before I could read a novel.
But the moment passed,
replaced by the cold calculation of a man who only knew how to win.
“The sale isn't final until the board ratifies the change in leadership,”
he said.
“And the board is loyal to me.”
“The board is loyal to their dividends,”
I countered.
“And I’ve spent the last six months buying out their secondary interests.
I own forty-two percent of the voting shares individually.
With the Everest acquisition,
I hold sixty-eight percent.
The board doesn't ratify me,
Victor.
I ratify the board.”
He took a step back,
the reality finally sinking in.
There was no loophole.
There was no escape.
He was a king without a throne,
standing in a room he no longer owned.
“What do you want?”
he asked,
his voice small.
“Do you want me to apologize?
Is that what this is?
A fifty-million-dollar tantrum?”
I felt a surge of anger,
hot and bright.
“I want you to feel what I felt.
I want you to walk out of this building with nothing but your coat and your dignity,
and I want to see how long that dignity lasts when the world knows you were outplayed by the 'support player'.”
I pointed toward the door.
“Security is waiting.
Don't make them use the handcuffs.”
He stared at me for a long time.
He looked like an old man.
Not a titan.
Not a legend.
Just a tired,
bitter old man.
He didn't say another word.
He turned and walked out of the office.
I watched him go,
and as the door clicked shut,
the silence rushed back in.
I sat down in the leather chair.
It was too big for me.
May you like
Or maybe,
I just wasn't the person I thought I would be when I finally sat in it.
