Chapter 6 - Eleven Minutes Missing.
Sebastian reached Vale Meridian headquarters at ten twelve with Elena beside him despite every argument he made against her coming.
She wore the same emerald dress beneath a long black coat because she refused to waste time going home to change.
The marble lobby fell silent when they entered.
Employees had already seen the edited video.
Someone had leaked a fourteen-second clip showing Sebastian overturning the dining table while six older women screamed in the background.
The clip began after Elena had fallen.
It ended before he carried her away.
The caption spreading online called him the unstable heir to Vale Meridian.
Elena watched one employee quickly hide a phone.
"That's what they wanted."
Sebastian kept walking.
"Then they should have filmed the whole thing."
The boardroom occupied the top floor behind frosted glass doors.
Nathan Cole stood at the head of the table when Sebastian entered.
He was sixty-eight, silver-haired, immaculate, and calm in the way men become calm after decades of being paid to speak last.
Vivian sat to his right.
She had changed into a cream suit.
Nothing in her appearance suggested she had watched her son disown her twelve hours earlier.
Andrew Harrow sat beside her.
Celia's chair was empty.
Nathan raised a hand.
"Sebastian, this is a closed emergency session."
"Then close it after I sit down."
"Your voting authority is temporarily suspended."
Sebastian placed the black ledger on the table.
Nathan's face changed by less than a millimeter.
It was enough.
Vivian saw it too.
"Where did you get that?"
Sebastian ignored her.
He looked at Nathan.
"My father says you lied to him."
Nathan folded his hands.
"Your father was gravely ill when he wrote many things."
Leah entered behind them.
"Interesting."
She placed a copy of Elias's letter on the table.
"Because the handwriting expert dates this eleven months before his diagnosis."
Nathan's composure finally cracked.
Vivian spoke first.
"This is absurd."
Elena removed her coat.
The emerald dress beneath it seemed to provoke Vivian more than any accusation.
"You should be in bed."
"You should be ashamed."
The board members looked at each other.
Vivian's mouth tightened.
Nathan tapped the table.
"This meeting concerns Sebastian's conduct, not a family disagreement."
"It concerns a staged witness event," Leah said.
She distributed printed stills from the chandelier footage.
Nathan glanced at them.
"Security images can be manipulated."
Sebastian leaned forward.
"Then you'll have no objection to an independent forensic copy."
Nathan did not answer.
Andrew Harrow did.
"This spectacle is exactly why temporary leadership is necessary."
Elena turned toward him.
"Your wife knew where the camera was."
Andrew's face went still.
"Celia has nothing to do with this."
"Then why did she warn us?"
Vivian looked sharply at Andrew.
That reaction told Sebastian more than the answer would have.
The alliance between Vivian and the Harrows was not as solid as it appeared.
Leah opened her laptop.
"We also have eleven minutes missing from the house security network between eight oh seven and eight eighteen."
Nathan looked down at his papers.
"Irrelevant."
"Your login token accessed the system at eight twelve."
Nathan's head rose.
The room shifted.
One director asked, "Nathan, why would you be inside the Vale home security system?"
Nathan answered smoothly.
"I wasn't."
"Then your credentials were stolen."
"Apparently."
Leah nodded.
"We thought so too."
She clicked a key.
A still image appeared on the boardroom screen.
It showed Nathan entering Vale House through a service corridor at eight eleven the previous night.
Vivian's face became rigid.
Nathan did not look at her.
Sebastian said, "You weren't at the dinner table, but you were in the house."
Nathan removed his glasses.
"I came because Vivian called me after you became violent."
Elena laughed softly.
"The timestamp is before Sebastian arrived."
Silence spread across the room.
Nathan looked toward the screen again.
The image had been pulled from a municipal traffic camera across the street, not from Vale security.
He had not expected it to exist.
Leah said, "You entered at eight eleven."
"The executive credential hit the archive at eight twelve."
"Seven seconds of chandelier footage were corrupted at seven forty-seven."
"And eleven minutes of house footage disappeared shortly after you arrived."
Nathan pushed back his chair.
"I advise everyone here to stop speaking until counsel is present."
Sebastian stared at him.
"You are counsel."
Nathan's eyes hardened.
"Not anymore."
He walked toward the door.
Two independent security officers blocked his path.
Vivian stood.
"You cannot detain my attorney."
Leah turned to her.
"We're not."
She smiled without warmth.
"The investigators waiting outside might."
Vivian looked toward the frosted glass doors.
For the first time, Sebastian saw fear in her face.
Then his phone vibrated.
Another unknown message appeared.
STOP LOOKING AT NATHAN.
ASK WHO SIGNED SEBASTIAN'S TOKEN AT 8:12.
Attached was a digital authorization record.
The biometric signature did not belong to Nathan.
Before the board could formally dismiss them, Thomas Reeve asked Sebastian to explain why his executive token had remained active inside the mansion after he left for the hospital.
Sebastian admitted that Vivian had managed his backup credentials during Elias's illness and that he had never revoked the arrangement.
Several directors exchanged uncomfortable looks because similar family-office shortcuts existed throughout Vale Meridian.
Leah warned them that the case was no longer about one compromised login but about a governance culture built around unquestioned family access.
Elena listened from the end of the table and realized how easily private control had disguised itself as convenience.
Vivian had not needed to break into their lives because the doors had been left open for her.
Sebastian asked the board secretary for a list of every account, clinic, residence, trust, and company system where Vivian or Nathan held delegated authority.
The list filled three pages.
He read it without speaking.
Then he signed an immediate revocation request for every item he legally controlled.
Vivian watched him sign and finally understood that his anger at dinner had not been the dangerous part.
May you like
The dangerous part was that he had stopped asking permission.
It belonged to Elena.
