“I didn’t know who the principal behind Meridian was until ten seconds ago!” Richard shot back defensively, finally looking up at Eleanor with a mixture of dread and confusion. “My real estate fund in Miami went belly-up in September, Tori! I had forty million in personal margin calls hanging over my head. Meridian offered twelve percent over market value for a private block purchase, cash wired in forty-eight hours, provided I signed a non-disclosure agreement until the Q4 board meeting. The Thorne trustees took the same deal last week!”
Victoria staggered back half a step, her back bumping into the edge of the walnut table. In less than four minutes, her entire world—the private drivers, the corporate box at Lincoln Center, the undisputed power of the Vance name—had evaporated, leaving her stranded on an island of seven percent.
Then her eyes narrowed. Panic hardened back into venomous spite. She spun back toward Eleanor, planting both hands on the polished wood and leaning over the table.
“Fine!” Victoria spat, her chest heaving beneath the black satin blouse. “So you bought your way into the room through backdoor brokers! You think that makes you one of us? I still own seven percent of this company, and the Q4 restructuring package on today’s agenda has already been signed off by the compensation committee! You can sit in that big chair all you want, lady, but the disbursements scheduled for noon today are locked in!”
Eleanor watched Victoria’s knuckles turn white against the dark wood. She didn’t lean back. Instead, she reached into the open black leather portfolio on the table and slid her fingers past the white shareholder certificate to a second document underneath—a thick sheaf of bank audit spreadsheets marked with a stiff crimson tab along the side.
“Are you referring to Agenda Item Four, Mrs. Vance?” Eleanor asked quietly. “The eighteen-million-dollar emergency consulting payout to an outside firm called V-Lux Styling & Strategy, LLC?”
Across the table, Richard’s head jerked up. “Eighteen million? Tori, you told me that restructuring line was three million for warehouse automation software!”
Victoria’s face went dead white beneath her rouge. She didn’t answer Richard. Her eyes were glued to the crimson-tabbed spreadsheet Eleanor had just pulled halfway out of the leather folder.
“We won’t be voting on the eighteen million today,” Eleanor continued, her voice dropping an octave so every word landed with surgical clarity in the hushed room. “Because before we discuss the eighteen million you were trying to push through at noon, Mrs. Vance, we need to discuss the four point two million that was already wired to V-Lux Styling & Strategy last month—straight out of the Apex Employee Pension Reserve.”
Across the table, Arthur gasped aloud. “The pension reserve? That’s a restricted fiduciary trust!”
At the top of the crimson-tabbed page, highlighted in yellow, sat an internal bank wire slip stamped with an executive override code: AUTH-VV-09.
When Victoria saw her own authorization code staring up from the paper, her composure broke entirely. With a sharp cry, her right hand shot across the walnut table to snatch the crimson-tabbed sheet out of the portfolio—only for Eleanor’s left hand to come down calmly and close the heavy black leather cover right over Victoria’s gold bracelets with a quiet, decisive snap.
Eleanor’s fingers rested lightly on the closed black leather portfolio, trapping the edge of Victoria’s chunky gold bracelet against the polished walnut for a single heartbeat before Victoria yanked her wrist back.
Nobody at the table breathed as Victoria rubbed her wrist, her arrogant posture cracking into visible agitation. The heavy gold links of her bracelet clicked together as she took two stumbling steps back from the head of the table, her chest heaving beneath the hot-pink sequined blazer.
“Don’t you touch me!” Victoria hissed, though everyone around the walnut table had just watched her lunge across the wood toward Eleanor’s documents. She spun toward the five seated directors, her teased blonde bob stiff as a helmet while her painted red lips twisted in panic. “Did you all see that? She’s physically intimidating a board member! And she’s waving illegally obtained internal bank records without counsel present!”