Eleanor looked down at the looping, extravagant signature in bright blue ink at the bottom of Document 09-B: Victoria Hollister Vance.
“Mr. Jennings,” Eleanor said, handing Maya’s silver flash drive and the archival binder across the table. “Please scan Document Zero-Nine-B and load it into Queue Slot One on the main wall monitor. Then load Ms. Lin’s vendor disbursement spreadsheet from the flash drive into Queue Slot Two.”
At ten-twenty-eight, the other four directors filed nervously back into the room and took their seats.
At ten-twenty-nine, the double glass doors swung wide.
Victoria Vance strutted back into the boardroom as if she were walking a red carpet. The panic from twenty minutes earlier was gone, replaced by a glittering, insufferable smirk. Right behind her walked Richard and a tall, silver-haired man in a bespoke charcoal suit carrying a heavy leather briefcase—David Ross, Apex Vance’s General Counsel.
Victoria didn’t even wait for David Ross to set his briefcase down. She marched straight to the chair nearest the head of the table, sat down with a dramatic flourish of hot-pink sequins, crossed her legs, and folded her hands over her knee.
“I hope you enjoyed keeping that chair warm for thirty minutes, Ms. Sterling,” Victoria said loudly, her voice dripping with condescending sweetness as she looked around the walnut table to make sure all the men were watching her victory. “Because David has the original nineteen eighty-eight corporate charter right here in his hand. Under Article Seven, every single share Richard and the trusts sold you without my written thirty-day refusal is legally void.”
She tilted her chin up, her oversized gold earrings catching the light as she flashed Eleanor a cold, triumphant smile.
“Go ahead, David,” Victoria purred. “Read the family refusal bylaw that strips this woman of her shares and puts her back on the elevator.”
David Ross clicked open the brass latches of his briefcase and reached inside for the bound charter.
Before his fingers could pull the booklet out, Eleanor calmly picked up the slim black remote control resting beside her leather portfolio and pressed a single button.
“Actually, David,” Eleanor said, her quiet voice cutting effortlessly through the room, “before you read Article Seven, let’s put Victoria’s signature from July fourteenth up on the eighty-inch screen first.”
General Counsel David Ross froze with his leather briefcase half-open as the eighty-inch monitor behind Victoria flickered to life. Instead of the Q4 restructuring agenda, a high-resolution scan of Document 09-B filled the glass-walled boardroom, displaying Victoria’s looping, extravagant signature in bright blue ink at the bottom of the page.
Around the polished walnut table, all five directors leaned forward, squinting at the crisp legal text projected four feet high across the screen.
Victoria didn’t even turn around at first. She kept her hot-pink trousers crossed at the knee, one glossy black heel bobbing lightly in the air as she waited for David Ross to dismantle Eleanor’s claim.
“Well, David?” Victoria prompted, a smug edge in her voice as she smoothed the black satin collar beneath her chunky gold necklace. “Tell her. Tell her what the charter says about family blocks.”
David Ross didn’t reach into his briefcase. Slowly, he took a pair of reading glasses from his breast pocket, slid them onto his nose, and turned his body toward the wall monitor. For ten long seconds, the only sound in the room was the faint hum of the ventilation system. As his eyes tracked down to Paragraph Four of the projected document—highlighted in a neat yellow box by Arthur—the veteran lawyer’s shoulders dropped half an inch.
“Mrs. Vance,” David said quietly, his voice stripped of all courtroom bravado. “Did you sign this Standard Liquidity and Subordination Release on July fourteenth?”
Victoria’s heel stopped bobbing. She turned her head sharply over her padded pink shoulder, frowning up at the screen.
“Of course I signed that!” Victoria snapped, waving a manicured hand dismissively. “That was the standard authorization form for my one-point-five-million-dollar Q4 dividend advance! Arthur brought it up to my office before I left for Southampton. What does a dividend draw have to do with Article Seven?”
“It wasn’t a standard dividend form, Tori,” Richard Vance muttered from two seats down, his face turning gray as he read the highlighted paragraph on the screen.
David Ross pulled his glasses off and looked directly at Victoria. “Mrs. Vance, because the company was under an institutional credit covenant in July, any early cash advance to a board member required an unconditional subordination of special charter privileges. Look at Paragraph Four on the screen. The undersigned Shareholder hereby irrevocably waives and relinquishes all rights of first refusal, notice periods, and preemptive purchase options under Article Seven of the Corporate Charter for a period of twelve calendar months.”
Victoria stared at the lawyer, her painted red lips parting as the words hung in the air. “What? No! Nobody told me that was in there! Arthur didn’t read that part to me!”
Seated at his lectern, Arthur Jennings spoke up in a calm, steady tone. “Mrs. Vance, when I brought the folder to your office on July fourteenth and recommended that you forward it to Mr. Ross for legal review, you told me—and I quote—‘I don’t pay lawyers to read four pages of boring boilerplate when my decorator is waiting for a wire. Give me the pen.’”