Arthur Jennings, who had served as corporate secretary of Apex Vance Holdings for twenty-two years, fumbled for his glasses. His fingers trembled slightly as he leaned over the polished wood, his eyes scanning the embossed golden seal of the Depository Trust Company at the bottom of the crisp white ledger sheet.
“Arthur?” said Lawrence Miller, a senior director seated halfway down the table, his voice dropping to a nervous rasp. “What is that? What are you looking at?”
Arthur swallowed hard. When he looked up, he didn’t look at Victoria. He looked directly at the tall Black woman standing calmly at the head of the table in her tailored deep plum suit.
“It’s a verified DTC institutional transfer certificate,” Arthur said, his voice cracking once before he steadied it. “Executed and cleared at eight-fifteen this morning. Registered to Meridian Sterling Capital, LLC.” He paused, his gaze dropping back to the bold numbers printed beneath the header. “Representing fifty-one point four percent of all voting Class-A common stock in Apex Vance Holdings.”
A collective intake of breath rippled around the leather chairs. Four directors straightened up at once, papers rustling as they reached for their own folders, as if checking their printed agendas could somehow make the number disappear.
Victoria didn’t reach for a folder. Her face flushed a dark, blotchy crimson beneath her heavy foundation, and she let out a shrill, brittle laugh that bounced off the glass walls.
“Oh, please!” Victoria snapped, the oversized gold chandelier earrings swinging violently against her neck as she threw her hands up. “Fifty-one percent? Are you all losing your minds? Arthur, put your glasses on properly! Anybody with a laser printer and twenty dollars at a Midtown copy shop can print a fancy seal on heavy paper.”
She took a sharp step toward the head of the table, her glossy black heels clicking like small hammers against the hardwood border around the carpet. She pointed a manicured, red-tipped finger three inches from the black leather portfolio.
“My late husband built the modern board of this company,” Victoria said, her voice rising back into the shrill, commanding register she used on hotel staff and junior assistants. “I hold seven percent of Apex Vance in my own name, and my brother-in-law Richard holds twenty-four. Together with the Thorne trust and the institutional blocks, the founding circle controls sixty percent of this floor. You cannot walk in here off the street with a fake folder and pretend you own our company!”
Eleanor didn’t look down at the pointing finger. She kept her gaze level on Victoria’s eyes. Up close, the contrast between the two women was almost painful: Victoria bristling in neon pink sequins and clinking gold chains, her posture rigid with outrage, while Eleanor stood completely still, the dark plum fabric of her jacket hanging in clean, effortless lines, her small diamond studs barely glinting against her warm brown skin.
“If you believe the certificate is a copy-shop novelty, Mrs. Vance,” Eleanor said, her voice calm and resonant in the quiet room, “there is a live terminal built into Arthur’s lectern. The CUSIP registration number is printed in the upper right corner.”
She reached down with two fingers, turned the open black leather portfolio ninety degrees so it faced Arthur squarely, and then pulled back the high-backed leather chair at the very head of the walnut table—the chair that had remained empty all morning.
“Wait just a second!” Victoria barked, her hand slapping flat onto the back of the chair before Eleanor could sit. “That is Richard’s chair! That is the Chairman’s seat! You do not sit there!”
Eleanor paused, her hand resting lightly on the opposite arm of the chair. She looked at Victoria’s hand, where three heavy gold rings dug into the black leather, and then slowly lifted her gaze back to Victoria’s face.
“The corporate bylaws of Apex Vance Holdings state that the presiding chair of any quarterly restructuring session belongs to the holder of the largest verified voting block present in the room,” Eleanor said evenly. “Unless you have forty-five percent hidden inside that blazer, Mrs. Vance, you are touching my chair.”