Chapter 7 - THE EVICTION NOTICE
The silence in the executive office was absolute, broken only by the hum of the city far below us.
Charles Price’s smug, reptilian confidence shattered instantly. The color drained from his face, leaving him looking sickly and old under the harsh fluorescent lights.
“You’re lying,” Charles breathed, taking a step forward.
“Read it yourself,” Mason said, holding up the document. “Vanessa Price is listed as the sole proprietor of Zenith Contracting. You used your own daughter’s name to launder the embezzled money.”
Charles stared at the paper. His jaw clenched so hard I thought his teeth might crack.
“She didn’t know,” Charles spat, his voice dropping the polite corporate veneer, exposing the desperate thug underneath. “She signed the LLC papers because I told her it was a tax shelter for her inheritance. She’s innocent.”
“The federal government won’t care,” I said, stepping out from in front of Mason, adrenaline flooding my veins. “Four million dollars embezzled. A structural failure that threatens hundreds of lives. She is the legal owner of the shell company. She’ll face twenty years in a federal penitentiary for fraud and reckless endangerment.”
Charles looked at the child’s drawing on his desk. His hands began to tremble. For all his ruthlessness, his twisted love for Vanessa was his only vulnerability.
“You won’t give this to the police,” Charles said, looking back at us, his voice a low, dangerous growl. “Because if you do, I will destroy you. I hold the mortgage on your duplex, Lily. My shell company bought the property management firm two months ago. If you don’t hand over that folder, you’ll have an eviction notice on your door by 9:00 AM. You’ll be homeless. Penniless.”
He was desperate. He was grasping at straws.
“An eviction notice?” Jonathan Calder spoke up, his voice booming with the authority of a titan.
Jonathan stepped forward, leaning heavily on his cane, but looking ten feet tall. He walked right up to Charles, ignoring the guns pointed at us.
“You think you can threaten my granddaughter with a housing notice?” Jonathan asked, his eyes burning with absolute contempt. “You think you can intimidate the true heir of the Calder empire with poverty?”
Charles sneered. “You don’t have an empire anymore, Jonathan. Elias listens to me. The board listens to me. You’re a relic. And this ‘heir’ is a waitress who wears cheap shoes.”
Jonathan didn’t yell. He didn’t strike Charles.
He simply reached into the inner pocket of his frayed brown coat.
He pulled out a thick, legal document bound in heavy blue cardstock. He slammed it onto Charles’s mahogany desk.
“Read it,” Jonathan ordered.
Charles looked down at the document. He hesitated, then picked it up. As his eyes scanned the legal jargon, his hands began to shake violently.
“This is impossible,” Charles whispered. “You can’t do this.”
“I founded this company fifty years ago, Charles,” Jonathan said coldly. “When I stepped down and made Elias CEO, I retained the golden proxy shares. Fifty-one percent of the voting power. I never surrendered them. I placed them in a blind trust to be activated only in the event of gross corporate malfeasance.”
Jonathan looked at me. A proud, fierce smile touched his lips.
“The trust requires the signature of two blood-line Calders to execute a hostile takeover of the board,” Jonathan explained. “I am one. And Lily is the other.”
Charles staggered backward, bumping into the wall. “Elias doesn’t even know she exists! He won’t accept this!”
“Elias doesn’t have a choice,” Jonathan said. “The annual Calder Shareholder Gala is tonight in the Grand Ballroom of The Meridian Room building. The same building you left structurally compromised.”
Jonathan pointed his cane directly at Charles’s chest.
“At 8:00 PM tonight, Lily and I are walking onto that stage. We are presenting the structural failure reports to the shareholders. We are triggering the proxy shares. And we are firing you, Charles.”
Charles’s eyes darted frantically around the room. He looked at his armed men.
“Shoot them,” Charles ordered, his voice cracking with panic. “Shoot them now! Burn the documents!”
The men raised their weapons.
But before they could pull the triggers, the heavy double doors of the office swung violently open.
Standing in the doorway was Greg Holloway.
My former manager was out of breath, sweating profusely, holding a heavy brass fire extinguisher.
Greg didn’t hesitate. He swung the heavy metal cylinder with all his might, smashing it directly into the back of the nearest armed man’s head. The man collapsed instantly.
The second man spun around, raising his gun, but Mason was faster. Mason tackled him around the waist, driving him hard into the mahogany bookshelf. The gun clattered to the floor.
Charles lunged for the dropped weapon, but I slammed my foot down on his wrist.
Charles screamed in pain, dropping to his knees.
Greg stood over him, breathing heavily, dropping the fire extinguisher.
“I’m sorry, Lily,” Greg panted, looking at me with wild eyes. “Charles blackmailed me into firing you. He threatened to revoke my mother’s health insurance at the company clinic. But I followed him here. I heard everything. I won’t let him hurt anyone else.”
I stared at Greg, stunned by his sudden bravery.
Jonathan stepped forward, picking up the dropped gun and aiming it at Charles.
“Call the police, Greg,” Jonathan ordered quietly.
“No!” I shouted.
Everyone looked at me.
“If we call the police now, Charles’s lawyers will tie this up in court for years,” I said, my mind racing with a brilliant, terrifying plan. “He’ll use corporate funds to bury the structural reports. The board will protect him to save the stock price.”
I looked down at Charles, who was glaring up at me with pure hatred.
“We don’t arrest him,” I said coldly. “We let him go.”
Mason stared at me. “Lily, are you insane? He’ll run.”
“No, he won’t,” I said, picking up the red folder containing the safety reports. “Charles’s entire life is his reputation. If he runs, he admits guilt. He loses Vanessa. He loses everything.”
I looked at Charles.
“You’re going to go to the Gala tonight, Charles,” I commanded. “You’re going to stand on that stage in front of the cameras, the board, and Elias. And you are going to confess to everything.”
May you like
Charles laughed, a bitter, bloody sound. “I’ll never confess to anything.”
“You will,” I said softly, holding up the child’s drawing of Vanessa. “Because if you don’t, I will personally hand the LLC documents to the FBI tomorrow morning. And your daughter will spend the next twenty years in a concrete cell.”
