Chapter 2 - The Empty Desk
At exactly seven in the morning, Madison arrived at the corporate office.
She made sure to arrive early enough to thoroughly enjoy my anticipated humiliation.
She strutted past the main bullpen in her expensive cream heels.
She was carrying an iced coffee she had undoubtedly forced some poor assistant to fetch for her.
She glanced eagerly toward my glass-walled office to see me packing my things.
Her arrogant smile held for exactly two seconds.
Then she saw my completely empty desk.
There was no framed photo of my dog on the corner.
There were no logistical binders neatly stacked on the shelf.
There was no second monitor plugged into the docking station.
There was not even a locked drawer left under the wooden credenza.
There was just a crisp resignation letter placed perfectly in the center of the polished wood.
I had printed it on official company letterhead because I wanted the irony of the situation to breathe.
My dad came walking into the suite right behind her.
He was aggressively reading emails on his phone.
“What is it?” he asked, noticing her frozen posture.
Madison did not answer him.
Suddenly, Rebecca Cole came sprinting frantically from the elevator bank.
The company lawyer was pale, breathless, and had her phone clutched tightly in her trembling hand.
“Robert,” she gasped, nearly tripping over the carpet.
“Tell me you didn’t actually post it.”
Dad frowned in deep confusion.
“Post what?” he demanded.
Rebecca did not answer him directly.
Instead, she looked through the glass wall of the main executive conference room.
I was already sitting inside.
I was waiting patiently at the head of the long mahogany table.
I was not alone in the room.
I was flanked by Daniel Price, two of our most powerful board members, and an outside compliance consultant.
Dad’s confident smile died on the spot.
He marched toward the glass doors and pushed them open with a violent shove.
“What is the meaning of this, Ethan?” he yelled, finally losing his famous composure.
I gestured politely to the empty leather chair opposite me.
“Take a seat, Robert,” I said, using his first name to establish the new dynamic.
“I am no longer your Chief Operating Officer, which means I no longer answer to your parental authority.”
Madison hurried into the room behind him, glaring at the board members.
“He is just throwing a temper tantrum because I caught him slacking,” Madison lied smoothly.
The compliance consultant slid a massive stack of printed financial records across the table.
“Actually, your brother did not post a simple resignation letter to the company portal,” the consultant said.
“He posted a highly detailed whistleblower report directly to the Securities and Exchange Commission.”
Dad gripped the edge of the table as the gravity of the situation hit him.
“You reported your own flesh and blood to the federal government?” Dad asked in horror.
I leaned forward and locked eyes with the man who had suspended me twenty-four hours earlier.
“I didn't just report her, Robert,” I whispered coldly.
May you like
“I brought the federal agents with me.”
Two men in dark suits immediately stepped out of the adjacent private office and locked the conference room doors from the inside.
