Chapter 7 - Boardroom Execution
The 60th-floor boardroom of Vance Global was suffused with tense, suffocating silence. Marcus Sterling—a sixty-year-old patriarch with cold reptilian eyes and silver-streaked hair—sat at the head of the polished obsidian conference table. Around him sat twelve board members, sweat beading on their foreheads, completely cowed by the presence of Sterling’s private security guards lining the mahogany walls.
"The time is 09:15 AM," Marcus announced, tapping his signet ring against the glass tabletop. "As Arthur Vance is incapacitated and facing charges of high treason, the emergency stabilization protocol mandates the transfer of controlling equity to the Sterling Group."
"This is unconstitutional!" an elderly director protested weakly. "Arthur hasn't even been indicted yet!"
"Arthur Vance will never see the outside of a federal penitentiary again," Marcus sneered, signing his name across the acquisition document with a gold fountain pen. "Sign the transfer, gentlemen, or watch your family trusts evaporate before midday."
Before the nearest board member could pick up the pen, the heavy double doors of the boardroom unlocked with a loud electronic chirp.
They swung wide open.
Clara walked in.
She was no longer wearing the torn champagne gala dress. She wore a pristine, sharply tailored charcoal pantsuit, her blonde hair pulled tight into a commanding high ponytail, her diamond earrings reflecting the morning sunlight. Behind her stood Evelyn, completely devoid of tactical gear, dressed as a ruthless private attorney holding a leather briefcase.
The board gasped. Marcus froze, the pen hovering inches above the paper.
"Get out of my chair, Marcus," Clara said calmly, her voice echoing with sovereign authority across the room.
Marcus scoffed, recovering his sneer. "And who let this child inside? Security, remove this trespasser!"
Two armed guards lunged toward her, but Evelyn stepped forward like lightning. In two fluid, terrifying motions, she dislocated the wrist of the first guard and slammed the head of the second into the marble doorframe. Both collapsed unconscious to the floor.
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Clara didn't even look at the fallen men. She marched directly to the head of the table, slammed the encrypted silver drive onto the desk, and plugged it into the master terminal.
"I am Clara Vance, sole daughter and appointed legal proxy of Arthur Vance," she declared, her eyes burning into Marcus’s stunned face. "And as of two minutes ago, I just froze every asset the Sterling Group holds in this country."
