Chapter 14: The Boardroom Coup
Mateo stepped in front of Leah instinctively. "Dad? What the hell are you doing?"
Sterling didn't look at his son. His icy gaze was fixed entirely on Julian. "We intercepted a decrypted communication on the company servers this morning. Hayes reached out to a few of the senior board members with an... interesting proposition."
Leah’s stomach plummeted. "Hayes didn't just blackmail me. He blackmailed the board."
"He offered to sell us the Silver Creek documents for twenty million," Sterling corrected smoothly, stepping into the room. "And we paid him. An hour ago."
Julian stood up, furious. "You used company funds to pay off a blackmailer to cover up a mass murder?"
"I protected our assets!" Sterling barked, dropping his polite facade. "Do you have any idea what those documents would do to our international contracts? We would be blacklisted globally. The lawsuits would drain the accounts in six months. I have spent thirty years building this company alongside your father, Julian. I will not let you and your sudden conscience burn it to the ground."
"You're a monster," Leah spat. "Those miners had families."
Sterling finally looked at Leah, his expression dripping with condescension. "Welcome to the real world, Miss Moreno. In this room, we deal in ledgers, not emotions. Your grandfather understood that. It's a shame his son is so weak."
"What is your play, Sterling?" Julian demanded, his voice dangerously low.
"It's simple," Sterling said, pulling a folded legal document from his breast pocket and tossing it onto the desk. "A vote of no confidence. The board convened in secret this morning. We voted unanimously to remove you as CEO, effective immediately."
"You can't do that," Leah fired back. "I hold sixty percent of the voting shares through the trust!"
"Ah, yes. The trust," Sterling smiled thinly. "The bylaws of the Mercer Heirloom Trust clearly state that the majority shareholder must maintain the company's fiduciary interests. By actively planning to release documents that would sabotage the company's value, you are in breach of fiduciary duty. A judge will freeze your shares by noon. You have no power here."
Mateo stared at his father in absolute disgust. "You're orchestrating a hostile takeover. You used Eleanor's scandal to weaken Julian, and now you're using Hayes's blackmail to steal the throne."
"I am securing the empire," Sterling corrected. He gestured to the armed guards. "Escort Mr. Mercer and his daughter off the premises. Their access cards have been revoked."
"Dad, stop!" Mateo stepped forward, but two guards instantly grabbed his arms, holding him back.
"You're making a mistake, Mateo," Sterling warned his son. "Don't throw away your legacy for a girl who won't be in our tax bracket by tomorrow morning."
Mateo ripped his arms free from the guards, his eyes blazing. "You are no father of mine. If you do this, I will spend the rest of my life tearing you down."
Sterling’s face hardened into stone. "Escort them all out."
Within ten minutes, Leah, Julian, and Mateo were standing on the sidewalk outside the towering glass walls of Mercer Enterprises. The morning sky had turned gray, heavy rain beginning to slick the pavement.
Julian looked up at the building his family had owned for three generations, his shoulders sagging in defeat. They had lost everything in the blink of an eye.
"What do we do now?" Julian whispered.
Leah touched the pale-green signet pinned to her jacket. Her grandfather was a murderer. Her father had just lost his life's work. The board was corrupt to the core.
But Leah wasn't a billionaire who had never faced hardship. She was a girl who had survived in the trenches.
"Sterling paid Hayes twenty million for those files," Leah said, wiping the rain from her face. "Which means Sterling has the physical copies. But Hayes never gives up his leverage entirely. I guarantee you, Hayes kept a digital backup."
May you like
Mateo looked at her, catching onto her train of thought. "If we find Hayes, we can get the backup. We leak it to the press ourselves. We burn Sterling to the ground."
"Exactly," Leah said fiercely.
