Chapter 7 - The Choice of Inheritance
Evan’s gaze didn't leave mine. The raw adoration he had worn like a crown just twelve hours ago was entirely gone, replaced by a cold, calculating resentment that made him look terrifyingly like his father.
“You look like hell, Claire,” Evan said, pulling out a chair halfway down the long table and sitting down with deliberate slowness. He kept his bandaged left hand hidden beneath the edge of the mahogany. “Must have been a rough night auditing the sub-basement servers.”
I didn't flinch. I straightened my shoulders, letting my tablet rest against my palm like a shield. “The servers are running fine, Evan. Though we did notice some unusual traffic routing through Zurich last night.”
Evan’s jaw twitched, just a fraction of a millimeter, but he didn't break. He laughed—a short, sharp bark of sound that lacked any real humor. “Zurich? We acquire tech startups out of Zurich every Tuesday. If you have questions about European venture capital allocations, you can wait for the quarterly review next month.”
“This wasn't a venture capital allocation,” Vincent said, his voice cutting across the room like a blade. He hadn't moved from his spot beside me, his large frame casting a long shadow over the polished wood. “This was an unauthorized proxy download executed by a master override code belonging to Marcus.”
The silence that followed was absolute.
Evan slowly stopped tapping his fingers against the table. He looked from his father to me, his eyes narrowing as he calculated every variable we had just laid on the table. For a second, a flicker of genuine panic crossed his features, but he beat it down quickly, leaning back into his chair with affected nonchalance.
“Marcus is the head of security,” Evan said smoothly. “If he used an override code, maybe someone broke into his office. Why are you looking at me like I committed a federal offense?”
“Because Marcus didn't act alone,” I said, stepping forward to place my tablet flat on the center of the table, sliding it across the wood until it stopped right in front of him.
The screen displayed the encrypted routing log linking the Zurich proxy directly to the IP address of Evan's personal laptop, registered under his private residential apartment in Tribeca.
Evan stared down at the screen. The blood drained slowly from his face, leaving his skin the color of old paper.
“You don't have a warrant for that data,” he whispered.
“This isn't a criminal court, Evan,” Vincent said quietly, walking around the table until he stood directly behind his son's chair. He didn't touch him, but the sheer weight of his presence made Evan hunch his shoulders instinctively. “This is an internal corporate audit. And under section twelve of the Marlowe Ventures operating agreement, any executive officer found colluding with a competitor to sabotage municipal bidding forfeits their voting shares effective immediately.”
Evan’s head whipped up, staring at his father with sudden, naked horror. “You're going to strip my shares? For a bidding contract? I built the European sector from scratch!”
“You built it on my capital and my name,” Vincent corrected coldly. “And last night, you tried to burn the foundation down because your ego couldn't handle a rejection.”
“A rejection?” Evan stood up so violently his chair tipped backward, crashing loudly against the oak floorboards. His face was twisted into an ugly mask of rage. “You think this is about a girl? You've been grooming her to take my place for three years! Every contract, every expansion, every major decision—you asked Claire before you asked your own son!”
“Because she competence-tested every idea you brought to the table and didn't lose four million dollars in Rotterdam,” Vincent snapped back, his voice finally rising, cracking the calm facade like shattering glass.
The heavy double doors of the boardroom swung open.
Members of the board—four weary, well-dressed men and women in their sixties—walked into the room, stopping dead in their tracks at the sight of the overturned chair, the shouting father, and the pale, trembling son standing between them.
Evan looked around the room at the stunned faces of the directors. Then his eyes locked onto mine one last time.
May you like
“You think you won,” Evan whispered, his voice trembling with a quiet, devastating promise. “You think by pushing me out, you're securing the company. But you don't even know what my mother left me before she died.”
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