Chapter 3 - The Boardroom Siege.The morning after the gala, the sprawling glass-and-steel headquarters of Vance Global stood like a fortress in the city skyline.
I walked through the revolving doors at exactly eight in the morning, trading my civilian jacket for my pristine Navy dress blues.
Two heavily armed federal marshals flanked me, their expressions hidden behind mirrored sunglasses.
Admiral Reed walked beside me, carrying a titanium briefcase that held the future of my father’s legacy.
The security guards in the lobby stepped forward to block us, but one look at the federal badges made them freeze in their tracks.
“Executive floor,” I told the terrified receptionist, who scrambled to punch in the override code for the private elevator.
The ascent to the fiftieth floor was silent, the tension in the elevator cabin thick enough to slice with a combat knife.
When the doors slid open, we stepped into a chaotic executive suite.
Arthur Vance was screaming at his crisis management team, demanding to know how a disgraced exile had hijacked his charity gala.
He stopped mid-sentence when I breached the threshold of the boardroom, my boots echoing ominously on the hardwood.
“What is the meaning of this, Celeste?” Arthur demanded, his face turning an angry, mottled shade of crimson.
“That’s Commander Vance to you, Arthur,” I replied, keeping my voice terrifyingly calm.
Julian leaped from his leather chair, pointing a trembling finger at me.
“You can’t just barge in here; this is private property, and you are trespassing!” Julian yelled.
Admiral Reed placed the titanium briefcase on the mahogany conference table and snapped the locks open.
“Under the Patriot Act and maritime treason statutes, this entire building is now an active crime scene,” Reed announced.
Arthur’s arrogant facade cracked for a fraction of a second, his eyes darting toward a concealed wall safe behind his desk.
I noticed the subtle glance immediately; all those years growing up under his tyrannical roof had taught me his tells.
“You sold restricted naval frequencies and explosive schematics to a black-market syndicate in Macau,” I stated, pulling out a stack of heavily redacted documents.
“Those are baseless lies fabricated by a mentally unstable dropout,” Arthur spat, though his pulse was visibly racing at his neck.
“The detonator that blew apart the hull of the Artemis had a micro-stamp from your offshore manufacturing plant,” I countered, slamming an evidence photograph onto the table.
Silence fell over the boardroom, heavy and suffocating, as the executives stared at the photograph of the charred metal.
“We are freezing every asset, seizing every hard drive, and revoking your security clearances,” I told my father, looking him dead in the eye.
“You think you can destroy me with a piece of scrap metal?” Arthur hissed, his voice dropping to a venomous whisper.
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“No,” I replied softly.
“I’m going to destroy you by putting you on the stand and making you swear under oath.”
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