Chapter 7: The Boardroom
The emergency meeting of the Vance Enterprises board of directors was convened at exactly nine in the morning, forty-eight hours after Clara walked out of the ballroom. The atmosphere in the glass-walled conference room high above Wall Street was suffocatingly tense. The mahogany table, usually a place of comfortable banter and scotch-soaked deals, felt like a chopping block.
Julian pushed through the heavy glass doors, his suit wrinkled, dark circles under his eyes betraying a severe lack of sleep. He had spent the last two nights on a pull-out couch in a cheap motel by JFK airport, funded by a pawned Rolex.
"Julian," Arthur, the board chairman, said sharply as Julian moved toward the head of the table. "Take a seat on the side, please. That chair is no longer yours."
Julian froze, his hand hovering over the leather backrest of the CEO's chair. He looked around the room. The men and women who had fawned over him at galas and golf tournaments were refusing to make eye contact. They stared at their tablets, at the floor, anywhere but at the man who had driven their stock into the ground in a matter of hours.
"I am still the CEO of this company," Julian said, his voice tight, attempting to project an authority he knew he didn't possess.
"Not anymore, son," a calm, feminine voice echoed from the doorway.
Clara stepped into the boardroom, flanked by Marcus and Mr. Sterling. She wore a tailored slate-grey suit, her demeanor radiating absolute control. She didn't look angry; she looked like a surgeon about to make a necessary, if messy, incision.
"What is she doing here?" Julian demanded, his face flushing with anger. He turned to the board. "Security should have stopped her at the lobby!"
"Mrs. Vance is here at our invitation, Julian," Arthur sighed, rubbing his temples. He looked exhausted. "Or, rather, Clara Hayes. Aegis Trust acquired forty-one percent of our outstanding shares at market open today, capitalizing on the plunge you caused. Combined with the twenty percent she already controlled through the blind trust, she is now the majority shareholder."
Julian sank into a side chair, the air knocked out of his lungs. He stared at Clara, realizing with horrifying clarity that while he had been playing checkers, she had been playing three-dimensional chess.
"This meeting has one agenda item," Clara announced, taking the seat at the head of the table. She didn't gloat. Her voice was strictly business. "Vance Enterprises is insolvent. The reckless borrowing and vanity projects initiated by the former CEO have left this company hollow. Aegis Trust is offering a full buyout of all remaining shares at eighty cents on the dollar."
"Eighty cents?" one of the board members gasped. "That's robbery!"
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"It's twenty cents more than they'll be worth tomorrow when I publicly pull Aegis's backing," Clara replied smoothly, meeting the man's eyes without blinking. "You have thirty minutes to vote. Oh, and one more thing." She looked directly at Julian. "The buyout is contingent on the immediate, uncompensated termination of Julian Vance, pending a forensic audit of his expense accounts. I believe we will find significant embezzlement."
Julian opened his mouth to argue, to scream, to fight back, but looking around the room, he saw the truth. The board wasn't looking at him with pity. They were looking at him like dead weight they were eager to cut loose.
