Chapter 13 - The Boardroom Ambush
Forty-eight hours later, Naomi and Lucas walked into the glass tower of Sterling Holdings in midtown Atlanta. The whispers stopped the moment the elevator doors parted. Employees scattered, pretending to be occupied with paperwork, but their eyes tracked every step Naomi took. She wore an immaculate charcoal tailored suit, her hair pulled back into a sleek bun, walking with the quiet, effortless grace of someone who owned the floor beneath her feet.
Lucas pushed open the heavy oak doors of the executive boardroom.
Evelyn was already sitting at the head of the conference table. She was draped in a cream Chanel jacket, her manicured fingers resting delicately on a gold-plated pen. Flanking her were two senior attorneys and her younger sister, Clara, who had made a career out of feeding on Evelyn’s crumbs.
"Lucas," Evelyn purred, her voice dripping with artificial maternal tragedy. "I knew you’d come to your senses before this completely destroyed our family name."
She didn't even look at Naomi. To Evelyn, Naomi was an invisible stain on the furniture.
Lucas didn't sit. He remained standing at the opposite end of the mahogany table, placing his hands flat against the polished wood. "You have five minutes to withdraw the Fulton County petition, Mother."
Evelyn chuckled, a brittle, dry sound. "Oh, darling. You think this is still a bluff? The media is waiting outside the lobby. My lawyers are prepared to release bank statements showing hundreds of thousands of dollars redirected to Naomi’s family farm in Virginia."
"You mean the certified repayments for the supply contracts your firm failed to honor five years ago?" Naomi spoke, her voice ringing clear and authoritative through the chamber.
Evelyn’s eyes snapped toward Naomi, blazing with pure disgust. "Speak when you are spoken to, girl. You are an employee’s daughter who clawed her way into my home. You orchestrated that humiliation in Florida, and you will pay for it with every cent you hoped to inherit."
"The Florida stay," Lucas interrupted, his tone chillingly level, "was paid for by a company card issued under my personal social security number. Not the family trust. My money. My credit."
"And the board doesn't approve of rogue expenditures by petulant sons!" Evelyn slammed her hand on the table, her porcelain mask cracking. "I am Evelyn Sterling! I built this social circle! I made this name matter!"
"And you disgraced it," Lucas said. He pulled a silver flash drive from his pocket and slid it across the glass table until it hit Evelyn’s water glass with a soft clink. "Everything is on there, Mother. The resort exterior camera. The front desk audio. The testimony of four staff members whom you called 'uneducated peasants' before refusing to pay your incidental charges."
Evelyn’s lawyer reached for the drive, but Lucas’s icy glare pinned him to his chair.
May you like
"If that petition isn't withdrawn by three o'clock," Lucas continued, "this drive goes to every news outlet currently parked on the sidewalk. Let’s see what the symphony gala board thinks of their chairwoman kicking an elderly woman’s luggage into the dirt."
***
