Chapter 3 - THE BOARDROOM FROM MY HOSPITAL BED
The Apex Development board appeared across a hospital monitor.
Twelve faces filled the screen.
Some looked worried.
Some looked irritated.
Three looked frightened.
Ethan’s empty chair remained at the center of the conference table.
Board Chairman Richard Cole cleared his throat.
“Sarah, we were informed you suffered a serious accident.”
“I was attacked.”
The directors became silent.
Richard’s expression did not change.
“That allegation is being investigated.”
“So is forty-eight million dollars in missing company funds.”
A director named Evelyn Price looked away.
She controlled purchasing.
Her department approved six shell vendors.
Richard leaned toward the camera.
“This meeting concerns leadership continuity.”
“No.”
“It concerns a planned theft of voting control.”
I held my father’s trust token against the secure reader Liam placed beside the bed.
A green light appeared.
My fifty-one percent voting authority activated.
Richard glanced toward someone outside the camera.
Dr. Stephen Vale stepped into the boardroom.
He wore a charcoal suit.
Not a white coat.
He held the false incapacity report.
“In my medical opinion, Mrs. Hale is not capable of making complex financial decisions.”
Liam entered the camera frame.
“I am Chief of Emergency Medicine at Riverside Hospital.”
“I am also Mrs. Hale’s treating physician.”
“You have never examined her.”
Vale smiled.
“Her history was sufficient.”
“What history?”
“Anxiety.”
“Emotional instability.”
“Obsessive suspicion regarding her husband.”
My ribs burned when I breathed.
Still, I laughed.
“Suspicion is not a delusion when the money is missing.”
Mara Quinn placed herself beside the bed.
“This call is being preserved as part of a criminal investigation.”
Vale’s smile disappeared.
Richard raised one hand.
“This is corporate harassment.”
Mara held up a warrant.
“This morning, investigators searched three Apex subcontractors.”
“All three offices were empty.”
“Their registered managers are dead.”
One director whispered a curse.
Richard looked toward Evelyn Price.
She stood abruptly.
“I was told the vendors had been verified.”
“By whom?” I asked.
She did not answer.
The board’s attorney entered the room.
She was a quiet woman named Naomi Grant.
For years, Ethan mocked her careful questions.
That morning, she placed a sealed envelope before Richard.
“I received this from William Carter twelve years ago.”
My father.
The room seemed to shrink.
Naomi continued.
“He instructed me to open it if Sarah’s voting authority was challenged through medical incapacity.”
Richard stared at her.
“You concealed a company document?”
“I preserved a trust instruction.”
She opened the envelope.
My father’s recorded voice entered the boardroom.
“If anyone uses Sarah’s health, marriage, or physical safety to seize her shares, every officer supporting that action is immediately suspended pending independent review.”
The directors looked at one another.
My father had known wealth attracted men like Ethan.
He had also known love might make me slow to see one.
The recording continued.
“Sarah does not lose authority because someone injures her.”
“Any document claiming otherwise is fraudulent.”
Naomi placed the original trust agreement beside the incapacity report.
Vale’s document had no legal force.
I looked at Richard.
“I move to suspend Ethan Hale.”
“I move to suspend Dr. Vale’s advisory access.”
“I move to freeze every account connected to the twelve shell vendors.”
Richard stood.
“You cannot destroy this company from a hospital bed.”
“I built its financial structure from a rented apartment while Ethan was telling investors the company was his idea.”
I entered my vote.
Fifty-one percent.
Motion approved.
The system locked Ethan out of Apex Development.
His company email disconnected.
His executive accounts froze.
His office access disappeared.
Then an alert appeared on the monitor.
Someone had initiated an emergency transfer of twenty-two million dollars.
The destination account belonged to Apex’s chief financial officer.
May you like
Laura Dane.
My best friend since college.
