Chapter 11 - The Boardroom Purge
At 9:00 AM on Monday morning, the glass-and-steel boardroom of Morales-Delgado Architecture was packed to capacity.
The minority partners, the senior project directors, and the firm’s chief financial officers sat around the long mahogany table, their expressions grim and tense. Diego sat at the far end of the room, accompanied by an associate attorney from a second-rate firm; Arthur Sterling had officially withdrawn as legal counsel seventy-two hours prior, citing an irreconcilable conflict of interest.
Diego looked hollowed out. His suit hung loosely from his shoulders, his eyes were sunken and bloodshot, and his fingers drummed erratically against a paper coffee cup.
The door opened, and I walked in, Marcus Vance walking two paces behind me.
I didn't take my usual seat at the side of the table. I walked directly to the head of the conference table—the seat Diego had occupied for seven years—and set my leather portfolio down with deliberate, ringing authority.
“Verónica,” Diego croaked, attempting a weak, patronizing smile that died before it reached his eyes. “I’m glad you’re here. We need to present a united front to the board. The rumors circulating about our personal matters are damaging the firm’s public credit rating—”
“This isn't a personal matter, Diego,” I said, cutting him off with the precision of a scalpel. “This is an extraordinary shareholder meeting called under Section 14A of the New Jersey Business Corporation Act.”
Marcus Vance slid a thick stack of blue-bound forensic reports down the center of the table. Each director pulled a copy, their eyes scanning the executive summary with rising shock.
“For the past thirty-six months,” Vance announced to the room, “Mr. Diego Morales has systematically diverted twelve percent of gross project revenues from state-funded architectural contracts into an offshore entity registered in the Cayman Islands under his mother’s name. He has used corporate credit facilities to service private mortgages on properties owned by his extended family, and he has forged Mrs. Verónica Delgado’s corporate signature on four separate surety bonds.”
A chorus of hushed, horrified murmurs broke out among the senior partners.
“That’s an internal accounting dispute!” Diego yelled, half-rising from his chair. “Those were family distributions! Verónica was aware of every single transaction!”
“I was aware of nothing,” I said, looking him dead in the eye. “And neither was the State Licensing Board, which has just suspended your personal architectural credentials pending a criminal inquiry.”
I laid a single sheet of paper directly in front of him.
“Resolution of Immediate Removal,” I stated. “By virtue of my fifty-percent equity ownership and the twenty-percent voting proxy executed yesterday by senior partner Thomas Wright, Diego Morales is hereby stripped of the title of Chief Executive Officer, removed from all executive management committees, and terminated for gross cause.”
Diego’s hands trembled violently as he looked at the signature lines. “Thomas? You gave her your proxy?”
Thomas Wright, a grey-haired veteran architect who had known my father for thirty years, looked at Diego with cold disgust. “Your father-in-law gave you your first contract, Diego. You repaid him by stealing his daughter’s heritage and having your mother beat his grandchild. You’re lucky we don't throw you out of the window.”
Diego looked around the table. Not a single person met his eyes. Every head was turned down, every face locked in stone-cold rejection.
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“You have sixty minutes to clear your personal effects from the corner office, Mr. Morales,” Marcus Vance said, checking her watch. “After that, building security has orders to escort you to the curb.”
***
