Chapter 18 - The True Master of the House
Richard’s face drained of every drop of blood.
He looked frantically toward the corporate legal counsel sitting halfway down the table.
The head attorney, an elderly man with thick glasses, was rapidly thumbing through a leather-bound folder.
"Is this true, Marcus?" Richard screamed.
"Tell me it’s not true!"
Marcus swallowed hard, his hands trembling as he adjusted his glasses.
"Richard...
the FTA contracts stipulate that the vendor must possess unencumbered, permanent intellectual property rights for the valve assembly.
If Mr.
Vance does not renew the licensing agreement today...
we are in default.
The federal penalties trigger automatically at twelve noon."
"How much?" Richard gasped, leaning across the table toward Dad, his eyes wild with desperation.
"How much do you want, Edward?
Twenty million?
Fifty million?
Name your price!
I can wire it right now!"
"Fifty million?" Dad repeated with a slow, dry chuckle.
"Last night, Richard, you looked at me and told five hundred people that I was worth less than the dirt on your shoes.
You told my son he was an opportunist crawling into your family for scraps."
Dad pointed at Fiona, who stood tall beside me, her eyes locking onto her father with zero pity.
"You were willing to destroy your own daughter’s soul just to preserve your fragile social standing.
And now you think fifty million dollars can buy back the dignity you threw in the trash?"
Julian grabbed a heavy glass water pitcher from the table, his face twisted in rage.
"You old bastard!
You think you can come into our company and dictate terms?
My father built this firm!"
"Sit down, Julian," Fiona snapped.
The command cut through the room like a whip.
Julian looked shocked.
His sister had never raised her voice in her entire life.
"You sit down and shut your mouth," Fiona said, her voice trembling not with fear, but with absolute authority.
"You spent ten years spending company money on racehorses and private jets while Thomas worked seventy hours a week building an honest contracting business.
You are a fraud, Julian.
Dad is a fraud.
And Mom is the architect of this whole rotten illusion."
Evelyn burst into tears in the corner.
"Fiona, how can you say that to your family?
We gave you everything!"
"You gave me a cage," Fiona said coldly.
"And yesterday, I walked out of it."
Dad pulled a document from his inside pocket and slid it across the mahogany table.
It slid perfectly, stopping right in front of Richard Sterling.
"What is this?" Richard whispered.
"A buyout," Dad said.
"You will step down as CEO, effective immediately.
Julian will resign from all executive boards.
You will surrender sixty percent of your voting shares to the Vance Foundation.
In return, the foundation will assume all federal contract liabilities, save Sterling Global from bankruptcy, and grant you a modest pension of two hundred thousand dollars a year."
Richard stared at the paper as if it were a death warrant.
"Two hundred thousand?
That wouldn't even cover the taxes on our estate in the Hamptons!"
May you like
"Then sell the estate," Dad replied, standing up.
"Because if that document isn't signed by eleven-fifteen, the Department of Justice will seize it anyway."
