Chapter 60 - The Boardroom Ambush
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A murmur of confused, mocking laughter rippled through the Vanguard board members. Evelyn crossed her arms, looking at Sienna with sheer amusement.
"You want to fire me?" Evelyn scoffed loudly. "Sienna, you hold a negligible fraction of Vanguard stock. I control this board. I control Obsidian Holdings. By tomorrow morning, I will own the land your entire supply chain sits on, and your quaint little hotel will be bankrupt."
"Actually, Evelyn," Julian Thorne stepped forward, his voice cutting through the room like a whip. "Obsidian Holdings no longer holds any agricultural debt in the Willow Creek valley."
Evelyn’s smile faltered slightly, her eyes darting to her former boss. "What are you talking about, Julian?"
"The debts were paid in full yesterday afternoon," Sienna stated, sliding a certified bank manifesto across the long glass table. "The land is entirely unencumbered and protected by an international sovereign trust. Your aggressive leverage is gone."
Evelyn snatched the document, her face turning pale as she read the undeniable proof of the multi-million dollar transfer.
"Impossible," Evelyn hissed. "No domestic bank would approve this!"
"It wasn't a domestic bank," Victoria chimed in smoothly, a satisfied smirk on her lips. "It seems the St. Moritz has friends in very high, very royal places."
The board members began to whisper frantically among themselves. The cornerstone of Evelyn’s aggressive expansion strategy had just evaporated.
"That doesn't change anything!" Evelyn shouted, slamming her hand on the table to regain control of the room. "Vanguard is still a powerhouse! We will simply shift our focus and crush you through litigation!"
"You won't have the chance," Julian said, pulling a secondary file from his jacket. He turned his attention directly to the Vanguard shareholders. "While Evelyn was obsessing over destroying an independent hotel, she was illegally utilizing Vanguard’s pension funds to mask the losses from her failed acquisitions. She committed federal fraud to fund Obsidian Holdings."
The boardroom erupted into chaos. Shareholders shot to their feet, shouting questions.
"That is a lie!" Evelyn screamed, her composure entirely shattered. "He is a disgruntled ex-employee!"
"The evidence is heavily documented," Julian said, tossing the file onto the center of the table. "I built the security protocols for this company, Evelyn. You didn't think I left a backdoor in the servers? The SEC received this exact file an hour ago."
Evelyn backed away from the table, her eyes wide with terror as she realized her absolute destruction was imminent.
Sienna looked at the crumbling CEO with no pity, only finality.
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"Your era of corporate bullying is over, Evelyn," Sienna said softly, turning away from the table. "Julian, Victoria... I believe our business here is concluded."
The three of them walked out of the boardroom, leaving Vanguard to tear itself apart from the inside.
