Chapter 4 - The Corporate Sabotage
Robert was not a man who surrendered quietly.
Fired from his position as COO and entirely cut out of my revised will, he was desperate. He still held a significant amount of voting shares in the company, and he knew that if he could convince the board of directors that I was mentally unfit, he could execute a hostile takeover.
A week later, while Julian was recovering at my private estate, a headline broke in the financial times:
"STERLING HOLDINGS CEO ARTHUR STERLING IN MENTAL DECLINE? ESTRANGED, BANKRUPT SON RETURNS TO SIPHON FORTUNE."
Robert had leaked a heavily fabricated story to the press. He painted Julian as a dangerous, unstable addict who had crawled back to manipulate a senile old man out of his fortune. The company stock plummeted by twelve percent in a single morning.
My phone rang off the hook with panicked calls from the board of directors. Robert had called an emergency board meeting for Friday, intending to hold a vote of no confidence to oust me as CEO.
I sat in my home office, staring at the television as pundits debated the future of my company.
The office door opened. Julian walked in. He was wearing one of my old tailored suits. He looked sharp, focused, and completely transformed. The sick, exhausted construction worker was gone. The brilliant business mind that had graduated top of his class at Wharton fifteen years ago was back.
"They're attacking us, Dad," Julian said, looking at the TV.
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"Robert is trying to force me out," I sighed, rubbing my temples. "He's scared."
"He should be," Julian said, a fierce, protective fire in his eyes. He dropped a thick manila folder on my desk. "While I was resting, I had your private investigators do some digging into Robert's accounts. If he wants a war, let's give him one."
