Chapter 8 - Gathering the Allies
Word count: ~1,500 words
The next nine days were a blur of midnight conference calls, forensic financial audits, and quiet, intense lobbying sessions across Mexico City and New York.
Victor Thorne was a master of corporate warfare, but he had made one fatal calculation: he assumed that because I had spent three years grieving in the background, I had lost touch with the people who actually built Bellmont Hospitality from the ground up.
On Monday morning, I met with Alejandro Salinas in his wood-paneled law office downtown.
Salinas listened quietly as I laid out Thorne’s proxy coup attempt, sipping his tea with the calm assurance of a man who had survived half a century of corporate litigation.
“Victor Thorne is a shark, Julian,” Salinas said, setting his cup down. “He smells blood in the water because you showed humanity. Wall Street hates humanity; it interferes with predictable profit margins.”
“He thinks he can buy enough proxy votes to oust me,” I said.
“He can buy votes,” Salinas smiled, his eyes twinkling behind his glasses. “But he cannot buy loyalty. Your grandfather personally guaranteed the pensions of thirty senior retired chefs and service directors who still hold foundational voting stock. Do you think those old-timers are going to sell out to a Wall Street speculator?”
“I’m counting on the fact that they remember my grandfather’s philosophy,” I replied.
“Give me the proxy assignment forms,” Salinas said, sliding his reading glasses down his nose. “I’ll personally visit every single one of them this week. We’ll lock down twenty-eight percent of the foundational block before Thorne even knows what hit him.”
By Wednesday, Elena Vance had uncovered an even more powerful weapon.
She walked into my office holding a thick dossier, slamming it onto my desk with a triumphant grin.
“Julian, you’re not going to believe this,” she said, catching her breath. “While investigating Thorne Capital’s proxy acquisition trail, our forensic accountants traced the funds back through a shell company in the Cayman Islands.”
“And?”
“And that shell company is co-owned by none other than Roberto Gomez—our fired operations manager from Bellmont House.”
I stared at her, the pieces clicking together with terrifying clarity. “Vanessa Cole’s kickback scheme wasn't just a rogue manager playing favorites. It was part of an engineered smear campaign funded by Thorne Capital to devalue the branch’s performance metrics and manufacture a crisis!”
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“Bingo,” Elena beamed. “Thorne needed a failing branch score in Mexico City to justify a hostile takeover of regional operations. Vanessa was his planted asset inside the restaurant.”
“Get me the federal prosecutor’s office on the secure line,” I commanded, standing up from my chair. “We aren't just going to defeat Victor Thorne in the boardroom on November 15. We’re going to indict him.”
