Chapter 3 - The Desperate Ploy
The video of Julian being shoved into the back of a police cruiser was incredibly satisfying.
I closed the security feed and finally allowed myself to rest my eyes for a few hours.
When I woke up, the hospital room was filled with beautiful floral arrangements.
Chloe was sitting in the corner chair while scrolling furiously through her tablet.
She informed me that Julian had spent four hours in a holding cell before his mother posted bail.
Eleanor had been forced to pawn her favorite diamond necklace because all their credit cards were frozen.
I sipped a glass of ice water and mentally prepared for their next inevitable move.
Julian was a narcissist who would never accept defeat without a brutal public fight.
Right on cue, the television on the hospital wall flashed with a breaking local news alert.
The anchor announced an exclusive interview with a prominent Chicago business executive.
Julian’s face appeared on the screen, looking deliberately exhausted and deeply heartbroken.
He was sitting on a cheap motel bed with his mother sobbing softly in the background.
Julian looked directly into the camera and squeezed out a single, pathetic tear.
He told the reporter that his mentally unstable wife had suffered a traumatic brain injury in a car crash.
He claimed that my head injury had made me paranoid, vindictive, and completely delusional.
Julian spun a tragic tale about how I had stolen his life savings in a fit of medical madness.
He begged the public to help him save his beloved company from my irrational corporate sabotage.
Chloe threw her coffee cup into the trash can and swore loudly at the television screen.
She asked me how I could possibly stay so calm while he destroyed my reputation on live television.
I picked up my phone and opened a direct line to the editor-in-chief of that exact news network.
I had purchased the parent company of that broadcasting station three years ago during a hostile takeover.
The editor answered on the first ring, his voice trembling with nervous respect.
I ordered him to let the interview run its course without a single interruption.
I wanted Julian to dig his own grave as deeply as humanly possible on national television.
The more lies he told the public, the sweeter his ultimate destruction would become.
However, I knew that his media stunt would cause temporary panic among the Core Dynamics board members.
My phone began to ring endlessly with calls from panicked executives and confused shareholders.
Arthur Thorne sent me an urgent text message warning me that the board was calling an emergency vote.
Julian’s public sob story had successfully convinced the older board members that I was a liability.
They were planning to reinstate Julian as Regional Director and override the corporate audit completely.
If they succeeded, Julian would regain his power and immediately destroy the evidence of his embezzlement.
I grabbed my laptop and frantically typed in the security codes to access the virtual boardroom.
I had less than five minutes to stop the vote before Julian walked away clean.
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A terrifying error message suddenly dominated my entire laptop screen in bold crimson letters.
Someone from inside Aurora Capital had just locked me out of my own global system.
