Chapter 5 - An Empire of Glass
|
By 3:00 AM, the party on the fortieth floor was completely dead.
The guests had fled like panicked animals, terrified of being caught in whatever financial sinkhole was swallowing Paxton Greer.
Paxton sat alone in his mahogany-paneled office, surrounded by his remaining three capos and his high-priced corporate lawyer, Arthur Pendelton.
"Can we reverse the transfers?" Paxton demanded, slamming his fist onto the desk. "She’s a twenty-four-year-old girl with no legal standing! Claim she embezzled the funds!"
Pendelton rubbed his temples, looking through a stack of corporate filings he had pulled from the public registry. His face was grim.
"We can't claim embezzlement, Paxton," Pendelton said softly. "Because technically, you never owned the holding companies."
Paxton froze. "What the hell are you talking about? I signed every document!"
"You signed the operating agreements," Pendelton corrected, his voice flat. "But Lennox drafted the master articles of incorporation under a blind trust established in 2022. The sole trustee listed on the deed isn't you. It’s an entity called The South Side Youth Foundation."
"She tricked me," Paxton breathed, his knuckles turning white.
"She didn't trick you, Paxton," Pendelton said, closing his folder. "She gave you three years of complete operational control while keeping the legal ownership in a vault you couldn't touch. The moment you struck her tonight, she triggered a moral clause in the trust. You were voted out by the trustee."
Paxton stared at his attorney, his breath coming in jagged gasps.
May you like
"I built this!" Paxton screamed, throwing his heavy whiskey glass through the floor-to-ceiling glass window, watching it shatter into the dark city below. "I am Paxton Greer!"
"No, boss," Marcus said quietly from the doorway. "You were just the front man."
