The boardroom was silent, a graveyard of ambition, until the ancient wall clock ticked its mournful rhythm. Elias sat at the head of the obsidian table, his fingers steepled beneath his chin. Around him sat the powerful men and women in tailored suits and costly colognes whose eyes betrayed only suspicion. Their silence was taut, ready to snap.
"Let's begin," Elias said, voice low but unmistakably commanding.
The board meeting, called under the pretext of quarterly results, held far darker intent. Today, figures would fall, alliances would fracture, and power would change hands.
"We've had multiple PR storms over the past few weeks," he began, locking eyes with Valerie Dexter across the table. A flicker of unease passed over her face, quickly masked. "Accusations. Leaks. Smear campaigns. All of which were orchestrated by those who saw me as a pawn until I proved I'm the king."
A faint rustle of papers. A breath.
However, he continued. "Yes, we face pushback. But it's no longer chaos it's control. It's leverage. It's strategy."
Valerie's jaw tightened. Others shifted in seats.
He cleared his throat. "Now, you claim these issues are political, personal. But I present to you evidence."
He nodded to Magritte, who stood and passed folders to each director. The boxes were filled with acquisition contracts, email records, phone logs, timestamped transfers clear proof that half the board had conspired with external forces to undermine him.
"These contracts," Magritte said, voice cold, "expired because they were fraudulent. Signed under the same shell corporations we battled in Dubai, registered in the names of board members themselves."
The board swallowed. Vance looked at his copy with pale eyes.
He rose. "And the same meetings took place at the Duchess tower while I was drugged and smuggled home."
The board fell silent. It was no longer speculation.
Elias leaned forward. "So let me be clear. Any vote to depose me now will be viewed by authorities as obstruction of justice. It will trigger an legal inquiry."
Valerie bristled. "You can't threaten the board."
He smiled calmly. "I'm not threatening. I'm reminding."
The final domino fell: Voss, then Price, then even Crick's second-in-command shifted. The votes were cast 7 to 5 in Elias's favor.
"Motion denied," he said.
Chairman Vance exhaled. "Gentlemen, ladies… the vote fails."
Elias sat, but his gaze didn't leave the group.
"This ends today," he said. "Effective immediately, all implicated board members are suspended pending full audit. Only independent directors remain until the investigation concludes."
Gasping protests. Shuffling chairs.
Valerie rose. "This is a coup!"
He nodded as Lewis entered, handing her an envelope. She opened it, it contained formal suspension orders. Her face drained further.
"Checkmate," Elias whispered. He pressed "end meeting" on the console, and light extinguished in the room, replaced by quiet resignation.
The elevator ride down from the executive floor felt like the slow descent of a guillotine blade silent, steady, irreversible.
Magritte stood beside Elias, her arms folded, eyes fixed ahead. "You pushed too hard," she murmured, her voice tight. "Valerie isn't going to walk away. She's going to retaliate."
Elias didn't respond right away. His mind replayed the boardroom confrontation over and over each flinch, each silence, each shifting gaze. It wasn't just about votes. It was about power, exposure, survival. And now the battlefield had simply moved below ground.
"She won't get the chance," he finally said.
"You've underestimated her before."
"I underestimated Elias Thorne before. I won't underestimate anyone again."
The elevator opened to the lobby of the Draxon South Wing a sun-drenched atrium lined with modern glass sculpture and artificial waterfalls. At the far end, Jude stood waiting, tablet in hand, his usual stoicism breaking into a concerned grimace as they approached.
"She's already moved," Jude said without preamble. "Dexter met with Voss and three outside investors from the Geneva Group. They're planning a media hit job. They're going to spin your rise as a hostile takeover, and leak doctored surveillance footage from the night of the Duchess scandal."
Elias exhaled, nodding slowly. "They want to make me look like a tyrant with a scandal-ridden trail. Smart."
"She's contacting Miles Han."
"Damn."
Miles Han. Former tabloid titan turned legitimate journalist with a vicious vendetta against anyone tied to Draxon. If Dexter handed him anything, it would go viral in minutes.
"I'll handle it," Elias said. "Schedule a dinner with him. Make it look like I'm extending an olive branch."
"Elias "
"Do it, Jude. But send someone else in my place. Let him feel like he's won."
Jude looked hesitant but nodded.
"And Magritte," Elias added, turning to her. "I need that list."
She didn't even ask which list. She just handed it over a small envelope. "It's already alphabetized. Internal traitors. External stakeholders. The ones who owe us, and the ones who want us to fail."
Elias opened the envelope and skimmed the names: senators, stockholders, rival CEOs, lobbyists. His world wasn't just business it was war. And this was his battle map.
They didn't go back to Elias's penthouse that night. Too vulnerable. Instead, they regrouped at the subterranean Draxon Crisis Suite an off-the-books command center built during the height of corporate espionage.
Lewis was already there, reclining in a chair that barely contained his frame. "Knew it," he said, chomping on a toothpick. "Knew the minute you went head-to-head with Valerie, she'd get nasty."
"She already was nasty," Elias muttered, scanning the room. "But now she's desperate."
"Worse kind."
Magritte sat at the round conference table, tapping into her encrypted laptop. "We'll need a distraction."
"Bigger than the scandal?"
"No. Bigger than Elias Thorne."
Silence.
Elias glanced up. "What do you mean?"
"A new announcement. A new deal. Something so unprecedented, the media will have no choice but to cover it. Something too profitable, too world-shaking, for anyone to ignore."
Lewis leaned forward. "You're not talking about"
"Yes," Magritte said. "The Vektor Alliance."
Elias blinked. "We don't have access."
"Yet."
She looked up with a dangerous glint. "But I know who does."