Chapter 59

POV: Liam

The Sterling boardroom was usually a place of clinical precision, but today it felt like a funeral parlor. The air was heavy with the scent of bitter coffee and the ozone of a dozen active monitors. I stood at the head of the mahogany table, watching the digital ticker tape on the wall. The Vane-Sterling stock was a jagged red line, plummeting toward a bottom that didn't exist yet.

Isabella’s leak had hit like a precision strike.

"The markets aren't just reacting, Liam," Miller said, his voice echoing in the hollow room. "They’re panicking. The Vane Trust fraud allegations have triggered an automatic review of every Sterling acquisition from the last decade. We’re being hollowed out from the inside."

"Then we provide the internal audits," I said. My voice was flat, practiced. "We show that the Sterling side of the ledger is clean. We isolate the Vane assets and let the DOJ pick them apart."

"Isolate them?" Eleanor’s voice cut through the room like a shard of glass. She was sitting in the middle of the table, perfectly still, her hands folded in front of her. She didn't look like a woman whose empire was being dismantled. "You can't isolate a heart from a body, Liam. The merger is finalized. Our debt is your debt. Our fraud, as you so delicately put it, is now your liability."

"Only if we continue to protect you, Eleanor," I said, leaning over the table to look her in the eye. "The board has the power to file for a strategic separation. We can cut you out."

"Can you?" Eleanor smiled, and it was a cold, pitying expression. "Miller, would you like to explain the 'Interdependence Clause' to our CEO? Or perhaps the 'Succession Stasis'?"

Miller wouldn't look at me. He was staring at his tablet, his face a pale mask of corporate anxiety. "Liam, under the current charter, a strategic separation requires a unanimous vote from the executive committee. And since Eleanor holds the Vane block, and Arthur holds the secondary proxy... we don't have the numbers."

"We have the truth," I said. "That should be enough for this board."

"The truth is a variable," Eleanor countered. She stood up, her movements slow and deliberate. She walked to the window, looking out at the city that was currently devouring her reputation. "The board needs stability. They need a Chairman who isn't compromised by a personal vendetta against his own mother-in-law. They need someone who isn't trying to burn the company down to save a wife who won't even speak to him."

"This isn't about Isabella," I said, though the lie tasted like ash in my mouth.

"Isn't it?" Eleanor turned back to the room. "Liam has allowed his private life to dictate our public valuation. He sat by while his wife leaked proprietary trust data. He failed to secure the asset, and now he’s failing to secure the stock price. I move for a snap vote."

The room went silent. I felt the weight of the room shift. I looked at the directors—men and women I had known for years, people who had toasted my marriage, people who had cashed Sterling bonuses for a generation.

"A vote for what, Eleanor?" I asked.

"To strip you of the Chairmanship," she said. "The roles of CEO and Chairman were merged for your convenience, Liam. It’s time they were separated. The company needs a Chairman who can act as a check on your... emotional volatility."

"Is there a second?" the board secretary asked, her voice trembling.

"Second," Halloway said. He was the oldest member of the board, my father’s closest friend. He wouldn't meet my eyes.

"Halloway?" I asked, the betrayal hitting me harder than the market crash. "You’re going to side with her? After what she did to the Vane estate?"

"I’m siding with the shareholders, Liam," Halloway said, his voice sounding ancient. "We can’t have a Chairman who is the primary person of interest in a DOJ investigation. It’s not about loyalty. It’s about survival."

"Let’s vote," Eleanor said.

"All in favor of stripping Liam Sterling of the Chairmanship?" the secretary asked.

One by one, the hands went up. Miller. Vance. Chen. Halloway. It was a silent, rhythmic execution. They didn't even have the decency to look angry. They just looked tired. They wanted the bleeding to stop, and they thought my head on a platter would satisfy the gods of the NYSE.

"The motion carries," the secretary said, her voice a whisper. "Mr. Sterling, you are no longer the Chairman of the Board. You remain CEO, but your executive powers are now subject to the approval of the oversight committee."

"And who heads the committee?" I asked, though I already knew the answer.

"I do," Eleanor said. She walked to the head of the table, the seat I had occupied five minutes ago. She didn't sit down. She just rested her hand on the back of the chair, a gesture of absolute conquest. "And my first act as Chairwoman is to propose a new direction for our public relations. We need to stop fighting the regulators and start... collaborating."

"Collaborating?" I asked. "You mean giving them a scapegoat."

"I mean providing them with the person responsible for the 'unstable' environment that led to the leak," Eleanor said. She looked at the board. "Liam, you’re dismissed. The committee needs to discuss the interim CEO appointment. You are, after all, a conflict of interest now."

"I’m still the CEO," I said, my voice rising.

"At our pleasure," Eleanor reminded me. "Now, go check on your wife. I hear she’s having a very difficult day in the medical wing."

I walked out of the boardroom, the doors hissing shut behind me. The hallway was empty, the deep pile carpet muffling the sound of my footsteps. I felt lighter, in a way—the weight of the chairmanship had been a crown of thorns for months—but the lightness was terrifying. I was a CEO without a board, a husband without a wife, and a man without a legacy.

I reached the elevators and pressed the button for the medical wing. I needed to see Isabella. I needed to tell her that the burn was out of control, that the fires she’d started were jumping the firebreaks I’d built.

But when the elevator doors opened on the clinical floor, I didn't see the usual team of nurses. I saw two men in dark suits standing outside Isabella’s door.

"Mr. Sterling," one of them said, stepping into my path. "You don't have clearance for this floor."

"I’m the CEO of this company," I snapped. "Move."

"The Chairwoman has revoked your medical proxy," the guard said, his voice a monotone. "Ms. Vane is under the care of the board-appointed medical team now. No visitors. No exceptions."

"She’s my wife!"

"She’s an asset under forensic audit," the guard corrected. "And until the audit is complete, you are considered a person of interest. Please return to the executive floors, sir."

I looked through the small glass window in the door. I could see Isabella. She was sitting in the armchair, staring at the television. She looked small. She looked alone. She didn't see me.

I leaned my forehead against the cool glass, the breath from my lungs fogging the surface. I had tried to play the hero, tried to stay in the middle, tried to be the bridge between the woman I loved and the empire I inherited. And in the end, I had lost both.

I turned away from the door, my hands shaking in my pockets. I walked back toward the elevators, but I didn't go to the executive floors. I went to the lobby.

The press was still there, a wall of cameras and microphones behind the security cordons. They saw me and surged forward, their questions a deafening roar of "Liam!" and "Mr. Sterling!" and "Is the merger dead?"

I didn't answer them. I walked straight to my car, the flashes of the cameras strobing against the glass. I got inside and sat in the silence for a long moment, the engine idling with a low, expensive hum.

I picked up my phone. I didn't call my lawyer. I didn't call the board. I called a number I hadn't dialed in three years.

"It’s me," I said when the line picked up. "The vote happened. I lost the chair."

"I told you it would happen, Liam," the voice on the other end said—a gravelly, tired voice. "You can't fight a Vane in a room full of people who like money."

"I need your help, Marcus. I need the names of the shareholders who didn't sell this morning. The ones who are still holding on."

"Why?"

"Because Eleanor thinks she’s won," I said, watching the board members begin to exit the building in the rearview mirror. "She thinks she’s stripped me of my power. But she forgot that I still have the one thing she can't buy."

"And what’s that?"

"The truth about what happened in 2018," I said.

The major cliffhanger hit as I pulled away from the curb. My phone buzzed with a news alert. It wasn't about the stock price or the fraud. It was a link to a leaked video.

I tapped it. It was a feed from a security camera in the medical wing. It showed Isabella being wheeled out of her room, her hands in her lap, her face pale. But she wasn't being moved to a different wing. She was being moved to a black sedan parked in the underground garage.

And standing by the car, holding the door open for her, was Arthur Vane.

The headline on the video read: VANE HEIRESS LEAVES CLINIC UNDER FAMILY PROTECTION. CEO REMAINING SILENT.

She wasn't under medical care. She was being taken back to the estate. And based on the look on her face as she entered the car, she wasn't going voluntarily.

I threw the phone onto the passenger seat and slammed my foot on the accelerator.