Chapter 7 - The Master Plan
|
The piece of paper trembled in Daniel’s hand.
It wasn't a sudden fit of rage. It wasn't an accident. The entire tragedy had been meticulously orchestrated.
Vanessa had drafted the corporate proxy transfer, knowing she needed a triggering event to activate it. She needed Daniel arrested, or committed for psychological evaluation, to legally seize control of his billion-dollar hotel empire.
She pushed Lily down the stairs not just out of cruelty, but as bait.
She knew Daniel would react violently. She knew he would lose control if he saw his daughter hurt. She had engineered the perfect scenario: a crowded room, high-profile witnesses, and a seemingly unprovoked attack by a stressed, erratic CEO on his grieving, innocent wife.
"You brilliant, sick monster," Daniel whispered into the empty office.
If the police had arrested him that night, Vanessa would have walked into the corporate boardroom on Monday morning with tears in her eyes and the legal proxy in her hand. She would have seized control of the company while he sat in a holding cell facing domestic battery and child endangerment charges.
But Vanessa had made one miscalculation.
She had played the martyr too well. By publicly refusing to press charges to make herself look like a saint, she had inadvertently kept him out of jail. The proxy transfer hadn't triggered.
Daniel grabbed his encrypted cell phone and dialed a number he hadn't called in years.
"Marcus," Daniel said when the gruff voice answered on the third ring.
"Daniel. It's late. I heard about the gala. And your wife," Marcus replied, his tone guarded. Marcus Thorne was the company's CFO, but more importantly, he was a ruthless corporate fixer who had worked for Daniel’s father.
"Everything you heard is a lie," Daniel stated coldly. "Vanessa is trying to execute a hostile takeover. She drafted a proxy transfer three days before the gala. She pushed my daughter to provoke me into an arrest."
May you like
There was a long, heavy silence on the line.
"A proxy transfer requires a secondary signature from the board to validate the emergency clause," Marcus finally said, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Daniel, she can't do this alone. She has a partner on the inside."
