Chapter 4 - The Boardroom Slaughter“You thought I was too distracted by my children to notice the corporate restructuring, Greg?” I asked softly, sliding the massive forensic audit file across the polished table. It stopped directly in front of him. “You gave her the backdoor access to the policy in exchange for a twenty percent cut of the payout. You gambled my wife's life for a hundred million dollars.”
Greg stood up, his heavy leather chair scraping violently against the hardwood floor. He was sweating profusely, his hands trembling as he backed away from the table.
“Mason, I swear to God, I didn't know she was going to hurt Claire!” Greg pleaded, his voice cracking in sheer panic as the other executives stared at him in absolute disgust. “She said she was just going to force you out! She said the board would vote you out of the CEO position because of the stress! I didn't know about the poison, I swear!”
“Security,” I said, not even blinking, not raising my voice.
The heavy double doors of the boardroom swung open. My private security team, flanked by two federal agents, marched into the room. They grabbed Greg by the collar of his expensive suit, slamming him against the wall to cuff him. He wept pathetically, begging for forgiveness, screaming that he was manipulated.
I purged my empire of the rot in exactly ten minutes.
By the time I returned to the hospital, dawn was breaking over the city. The sky was painted in brilliant hues of violet and gold, a stark contrast to the darkness I had just waded through. Detective Ruiz was waiting for me in the lobby, holding a cup of terrible hospital coffee.
“We have her,” Ruiz said grimly. “When the tactical team breached the penthouse, she was frantically trying to burn the forged trust documents in your fireplace. She realized she was trapped. She’s in an interrogation room at the precinct right now, screaming for her lawyers.”
I didn't send my lawyers to deal with her. I went myself.
I walked into the freezing, dimly lit interrogation room at the precinct. Vanessa sat handcuffed to the steel table. Her designer blazer was wrinkled, her perfect hair was disheveled, and the arrogant, polished facade she had worn for eight years was completely, irreparably shattered. When I walked in, she didn't apologize. The true, terrifying narcissist finally clawed her way to the surface.
“She didn't deserve you, Mason!” Vanessa shrieked, her voice echoing violently off the concrete walls, her eyes manic and wild. “She was a nobody! She didn't understand the empire! I built this company with you! I managed your life, I protected your assets, I anticipated your every move! I deserved that wealth, not some pathetic woman whose only achievement was getting pregnant!”
I looked at the woman who had stood beside me for eight years, realizing I had never truly known her at all. She was an empty vessel, fueled only by greed and a twisted, delusional obsession with power.
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“Claire didn't build the empire, Vanessa,” I said, my voice eerily calm, cutting through her hysteria like a blade. “She built me. When I was starving and broke, she was the only one who stayed. You didn't love me. You loved the monster I became in the boardroom. And now, you are going to spend the rest of your miserable life in a concrete box, entirely forgotten by the world you tried to steal.”
I turned my back on her screams, walking out of the precinct, leaving her in the dark.
