Chapter 6: The Glass Throne
The drive back into the city was a quiet one, wrapped in the kind of silence that follows a hurricane. Donovan sat behind the wheel of the sleek black sedan, his eyes fixed on the road, while I watched the Atlantic blur into the steel and concrete of the financial district. The sun was fully up now, casting sharp, golden angles against the glass facades of the skyscrapers.
For two years, I had looked at the skyline and felt nothing but a hollow ache. Up there, on the forty-second floor of the towering structure now coming into view, was the empire my father had built and I had expanded. The empire Nathan had stolen with forged signatures, a shadow board, and the quiet complicity of people I had called friends.
"You ready for this?" Donovan asked, his voice a low, steady rumble breaking the silence. He didn't look at me, but I could see the tension in his jaw. He had been the only one to believe me when the rest of the board voted me out. He had risked his own career, his own freedom, to help me unearth the paper trail Nathan had buried so deeply.
"I’ve been ready for two years," I said, smoothing the lapels of my trench coat.
We pulled into the underground executive garage. My old parking spot—CEO, Reserved—was occupied by Nathan’s absurdly flashy silver Aston Martin. Donovan didn't hesitate; he parked his car directly behind it, blocking it in completely. A small, vindictive smile ghosted across my lips.
When the private elevator dinged and the steel doors slid open on the forty-second floor, the atmosphere was thick enough to choke on. The bustling bullpen of executive assistants and junior VPs froze. Telephones rang off the hook, ignored. Eyes darted toward me, wide with a mixture of shock, fear, and in a few cases, naked awe. The press release had gone out at 6:00 AM. The injunction was in place. The board had been entirely restructured by court order.
I didn't stop to greet anyone. My heels clicked rhythmically against the Italian marble floors, a metronome counting down the final seconds of Nathan’s era.
I pushed open the heavy oak double doors to the corner office. The room smelled of expensive leather and stale whiskey. Nathan wasn't there—he was likely still sitting in a holding room with his lawyers—but his presence lingered like a bad stain. His abstract art hung on the walls; his imported cigars cluttered my father's antique desk.
"Get facilities up here," I said to Donovan, not taking my eyes off the desk. "I want everything that belongs to him boxed up. If it doesn't fit in a box, throw it away. I want this room sanitized by noon."
Donovan leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms. "And what about the staff? Half of them are waiting for the axe to fall."
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"Let them wait," I said, stepping behind the desk and running my hand along the polished wood. "The ones who were complicit will be gone by Friday. The ones who simply kept their heads down to survive... they'll get a second chance. But right now, I need them to understand that the temperature in this building has changed."
I sat down in the leather chair. It felt foreign, tainted by him, but as I looked out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the sprawling city below, the chill in my bones began to thaw. The throne was glass, and it was fragile, but it was mine again.
