The tarmac wind tore through my cashmere coat, cold and biting against the concrete of Westchester County Airport.

By 1:30 PM, the executive boardroom at Whitmore Dynamics looked like a war zone.

Seven board members sat along the perimeter of the glass table, their faces pale, ties loosened, staring at the forensic audit summaries Daniel had distributed. Marcus and Henderson, the two men Grant had boasted were his unflinching allies, sat with their hands folded, utterly terrified of looking me in the eye.

The heavy mahogany doors swung open with a violent thud.

Grant burst into the room, disheveled, sweat glistening on his forehead. His tie was crooked, his hair ruffled from a frantic taxi ride across Manhattan. Sabrina trailed behind him, no longer wearing her smug smirk. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her face pasty beneath layers of expensive makeup.

"This meeting is unauthorized!" Grant shouted, slamming his briefcase onto the table. "I am the CEO of this company! Any vote taken in my absence is legally void!"

"Sit down, Grant," I said from the head of the table.

He stopped, his eyes darting to Marcus, then Henderson. "Marcus? What is this? Call corporate counsel. Have her removed!"

Marcus cleared his throat, staring down at his glass of ice water. "Grant... you need to look at page four of the forensic addendum. The federal wire notifications cleared this morning. We can't help you."

"What?" Grant spun toward Sabrina. "What did you do?"

"Me?" Sabrina gasped, taking a step backward, her voice shrill with betrayal. "You told me to upload the transfer authorization! You said Claire never checks the Hawthorne trust ledger! You said she was an idiot who only cared about her family gallery openings!"

A collective intake of breath echoed through the room. Several junior executives who had witnessed Sabrina’s little strawberry feeding display on the plane lowered their heads in collective embarrassment.

"Shut up!" Grant hissed at her. He turned back to me, adopting a pleading tone that made my skin crawl. "Claire. Honey. Look at what we’ve built here. Whitmore Dynamics is on the verge of becoming a market unicorn. You’re destroying an empire over a petty domestic dispute! So what if I had an affair? People in our circle do it every day! You don’t blow up a three-hundred-million-dollar company because your pride is hurt!"

"You think this is about your cheap affair?" I leaned back in the high-backed leather chair. "I stopped caring where you slept three years ago, Grant, when I realized you were an empty suit who couldn't even manage your own cash flow without my father's credit lines. This isn't about pride. This is about theft."

"I was going to replace the funds!" Grant cried out, his voice cracking. "The Sovereign Bridge round—"

"The Sovereign Bridge round is dead," a deep, gravelly voice echoed from the video conferencing screen mounted on the wall.

Grant froze. Slowly, his neck craned toward the display.

Julian Mercer sat on the screen, his sharp, aristocratic features framed by a pristine office overlooking Biscayne Bay. He held a glass of scotch, his expression carrying the cold disinterest of an executioner.

"Julian," Grant stammered, stepping toward the camera. "Julian, buddy, listen to me. Whatever Claire sent you, it's an internal family misunderstanding. I can be in Miami by 6:00 PM. We can sign the preliminary bridge loan tonight—"

"Grant," Julian Mercer interrupted, his voice smooth and utterly devoid of mercy. "Sovereign Bridge does not invest with thieves. More importantly, we do not invest with amateurs who steal from the daughter of Thomas Hawthorne. Thomas gave me my first seed capital twenty-five years ago. I wouldn't lend you five dollars for a subway token."

Sabrina dropped into an empty chair against the wall, burying her face in her hands. A muffled sob escaped her fingers.

"The board has concluded its vote, Grant," I announced, sliding a single sheet of paper across the table toward him. "Resolution 409-B passed unanimously three minutes before you walked through those doors. You are terminated for cause. Your stock options are forfeited under the gross moral turpitude clause. You have twenty minutes to remove your personal effects from your office under armed security escort."

Grant stared at the resolution. The ink was dry. His signature, once the defining mark of the company, was completely stripped of authority.

"You can't leave me with nothing," he whispered, his eyes wide and hollow. "I gave eleven years to this company. Everything I have is tied up in this stock."

"Then you should have remembered your place," I said.