Chapter 10 - The War Room
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Evelyn did not cry herself to sleep. At 8:00 AM the next morning, she made a phone call.
Two hours later, Rachel Morgan walked into Arthur Hale’s private estate. Rachel was a corporate attorney who specialized in hostile takeovers and the messy uncoupling of family dynasties. She wore a sharp gray suit and carried an empty legal pad, her eyes calculating the room instantly.
Arthur sat in his leather armchair, looking ten years older than he had the day before. Evelyn stood by the window, her posture rigid.
Rachel didn't offer sympathies about the affair. She only cared about the company.
“Let’s establish the facts,” Rachel said, clicking her pen. “Who authored the original Project Lantern framework?”
“I did,” Evelyn said.
“Who verified the numbers?”
“Martin Shaw.”
“Who authorized the implementation?”
“Arthur.”
Rachel wrote rapidly. “And Ethan? What was his involvement?”
“Zero,” Arthur growled, his voice trembling with anger at his son. “He was out playing golf and taking credit for the sunshine.”
Rachel looked at the printed emails Evelyn had provided. “And Ethan explicitly ordered your name removed from the investor materials?”
“Yes.”
Rachel leaned back, tapping her pen against her chin. “This is blatant intellectual property theft and corporate fraud. He is presenting your conservative recovery metrics as a springboard for an aggressive twelve-million-dollar expansion. But it gets worse.”
Rachel pulled out a secondary spreadsheet Martin had smuggled out of the financial servers.
“Look at the Malibu projections,” the lawyer pointed. “Vanessa altered your baseline data. She inflated the expected occupancy by twenty percent and slashed the projected labor costs. She manipulated your successful models to make Malibu look like a guaranteed goldmine.”
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Evelyn felt a chill run down her spine. “If Malibu fails… the board will look at the foundational data.”
“Exactly,” Rachel nodded grimly. “They’re stealing your success today, and they’re setting you up to take the fall for their bankruptcy tomorrow. They aren't just erasing you, Evelyn. They are framing you.”
