CHAPTER FOUR THE BOARDROOM AMBUSH(Sienna’s POV)

I stood helpless like a sheep sold out without any choice.

He turned towards the door and left me with a sharp answer “you have no choice Sienna”

Outside the glass,  rain was beginning to streak across the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking downtown Kraków. Below us, the city was in absolute rage,sport networks had been running non-stop coverage of Jaxson Cole’s catastrophic knee injury for the last  twenty four hours straight. Every major news outlet was tearing through our corporate reputation, spreading the failure of Vance bio-mechanical brace like vultures picking over a fresh kill.

I stood near the edge of the conference table, my arms crossed tightly over my chest, trying to warm the cold off me.

Beside me, Kaja was tapping her foot on the plush carpet, her leather jacket creaking slightly with every tense movement.

Around the thirty-foot table sat twelve board members, every single one of them dressed in dark, tailored suits, their faces pale and rigid.The room was so quiet.

At the head of the table stood Bronisław Vance, my uncle,  he  held a crystal tumbler of scotch in his right hand, the ice leaking  softly against the glass, the only sound breaking the suffocating silence in the room.

"You're quiet today, ladies and gentlemen," Bronisław said, his voice smooth, low, and terrifyingly calm. He didn't sound like a CEO whose company stock had just plunged fifteen percent overnight. He sounded like a man who had planned everything. "I expected more outrage. More panic."

"Outrage?" Marek Romanowski, the senior financial director, leaned forward, his hands trembling over his tablet. "Bronisław, the Warsaw Titans' legal team has already filed preliminary paperwork for a full league audit, If federal investigators look into the brace firmware calibrations.. "

"The federal investigators will find nothing except a tragic hardware anomaly," Bronisław interrupted softly, "Vance Sports Legacy will survive the press. We always do."

"How?" I interrupted , stepping forward into the light of the chandelier. My voice cut through the heavy room like a blade. "My name was stamped on that firmware patch,uncle. 

My digital signature cleared the diagnostic files. You know as well as I do that someone tampered with the system access logs!"

Bronisław slowly turned his cold grey eyes toward me. The warmth that normal human beings reserve for family was completely absent in his gaze. Instead, he looked at me the way an auctioneer looks at a piece of property that needs to be sold out.

"Your digital signature is the property of this corporation, Sienna," he said mildly. "As it’s your time, your reputation, and your medical license. You would do well to remember that your father built this company in my capital."

"My father built this company on medical ethics!" I shot back,with grief and fear"

He died protecting the integrity of this network! And now you're using my credentials to cover up a sabotage that destroyed an athlete's career!"

A sharp collective gasp rippled around the table. Kaja shifted slightly, her hand sliding into her jacket pocket where I knew she had a encrypted jump-drive hidden,a drive containing the micro-fracture data we had pulled from the stadium buffer few hours ago.

Bronisław didn't flinch at my outburst. Instead, a thin, hollow smile touched his lips.

"Ethics don't pay for clinical research facilities, my dear niece," he murmured. He leaned against the back of his leather chair, folding his manicured hands. 

"And speaking of your father's legacy... that brings us to the purpose of this emergency board meeting."

He reached out and tapped a key on the central podium. The giant projection screen behind him went on, displaying a massive corporate acquisition contract written in dense, high-level legal prose.

"Thirty minutes ago, the board received an unsolicited corporate buyout offer," Bronisław announced to the room. "A private company firm operating under the umbrella of Cole Global Enterprises,  offered to buy out forty-nine percent of Vance Sports Legacy’s voting shares at triple market value."

The board members gasped. Marek Romanowski stared at the screen, his mouth slightly open. "Triple market value? After the disaster last night? That’s hundreds of millions of euros..."

"There is, of course, a single contribution attached ," Bronisław continued, his eyes drifting back to me . "Cole Global Enterprises will inject capital and drop all pending criminal negligence lawsuits against our firm... in exchange for an exclusive, non-transferable medical lease."

A heavy, sickening weight dropped into my stomach. "A lease?"

"Your contract, Sienna," Bronisław said, "Jaxson Cole’s family has personally bought out your entire four-year employment contract from the Kraków Eagles and Vance Sports Legacy."

"You can't do that," Kaja said, "Sienna isn't a piece of equipment,Her contract has personal autonomy clauses "

"Her contract was amended six months ago during the corporate restructuring," Bronisław interrupted smoothly, pulling a crisp, white document from a leather folder and sliding it down the center of the table toward me. "The amendment states that in the event of a catastrophic liability claim against the clinical staff, Vance Sports Legacy retains the right to reassign primary medical personnel to clear corporate debts."

I stared at the document. There, at the bottom of the page, was my father's old corporate seal, backed by Bronisław’s firm signature.

I was trapped. Legally, professionally, and financially.

"Jaxson Cole is currently isolated at his private winter estate in Zakopane," Bronisław said, standing up and buttoning his charcoal jacket. "His family’s legal team has made it  very clear: if you are not on a private transport to the Tatra Mountains within the hour, they will file formal federal charges against you personally for the brace failure. Your license will be revoked by nightfall, and you will spend the next ten years in a state penitentiary fighting a corporate fraud indictment."

"He's framing her!" Kaja hissed, her knuckles turning white as she gripped her tablet.

"He is offering her a choice," Bronisław corrected, stepping closer to me.

"Go to Zakopane, Sienna. Fix the broken quarterback. Keep him from talking to the press. Complete his rehabilitation under their private supervision, and when his contract expires, you can have your freedom back."

"And if his knee can't be fixed?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper, though my eyes burned with fierce, raw anger. "What happens when his family realizes his joint was destroyed before he even stepped on the field?"

Bronisław leaned down, his lips brushing near my ear so only I could hear his final, cold words.