Chapter 4 - The Boardroom Coup
The day of the board meeting was the day of reckoning.
I was officially discharged. I arrived at Caldwell Industries in a sleek, black car, dressed in a suit that cost more than Harrison’s first car. My baby was safe; my resolve was forged in the fire of his betrayal.
The boardroom was tense. Harrison sat at the head of the table, looking frantic. Vivien was nowhere to be seen—she had been fired by the board three days earlier when the evidence of her embezzlement surfaced.
When I walked in, Harrison stood up, his face reddening. "Rebecca? What are you doing here?"
"I'm here to reclaim my assets," I said, sliding a document across the table.
It was a forensic audit of the last three years. Every cent he had moved, every bribe he had paid, every fraudulent contract he had signed. It was all there, laid out with surgical precision by the team Julian had hired.
"This is a lie," Harrison growled, trying to rip the papers.
"It’s not a lie," Julian said, walking into the room. The board members turned. They recognized Julian Caldwell—the titan of medicine and finance. They knew who held the real power. "The patents that Caldwell Industries is built upon were never legally held by Harrison. They remained the property of the Matthews-Caldwell trust. Which is managed, by power of attorney, by me."
Harrison’s mouth hung open. "That... that can't be."
"I have been watching you play at being a CEO for three years," Julian continued, his voice echoing in the silent room. "You have no business acumen. You have no integrity. And now, you have no company."
"The board won't vote for this!" Harrison yelled, looking around the room.
But the board members were already looking at their tablets, reading the audit, seeing the evidence of the company’s impending collapse under Harrison’s mismanagement. One by one, they nodded. They were not loyal to him; they were loyal to the money. And the money was moving away from him.
"Motion to remove Harrison Caldwell as CEO," the Chairman said, his voice devoid of emotion.
The vote was unanimous.
Harrison fell back into his chair. He had reached for the stars, and he had been dragged down into the mud. He looked at me, his eyes pleading, searching for a shred of the woman he thought he had broken.
May you like
I didn't offer him a shred. I looked at him as if he were a patient with a terminal, untreatable condition.
"You should have chosen differently," I said.
