Chapter 4

The next morning, Kane Consulting felt like a room with all the oxygen sucked out.

The Raven Club video had made the rounds internally. The same people who had applauded Clara the day before were suddenly busy staring at their keyboards. Nobody wanted to be caught on the wrong side of a story that smelled like money and lawyers.

Clara sat in my office with swollen eyes. She was still trying to hold herself together. Landon Capital files covered the desk, and her notebook was filled with facts copied from press releases and public profiles.

None of it mattered.

Victor Landon didn’t discuss his real concerns in interviews. He didn’t tell reporters that his primary issue was control of the family trust. He didn’t tell young consultants that every October was off-limits because of his daughter's medical accident the previous year. Those were the kinds of things a man told you after midnight over whiskey, once you had already proved you knew how to keep your mouth shut.

Julian called me into the conference room.

His eyes were bloodshot, and his tie sat crooked at his throat. For years he had dressed himself in calm-founder polish, but that morning the packaging was coming apart. Underneath was a man who had borrowed a life and finally realized the bill had arrived.

"Last night looked bad," he said.

"Did it?" I sat down. "I thought the doorman was very professional."

His jaw tightened, but he swallowed it. "Alessia, we do not need to go to war. The company needs your relationships, yes, but those relationships cannot remain tied to you personally forever. You are a partner here. Client lists belong to the firm."

"Client lists?"

I opened a folder and slid a page across the table. "This is the original introduction email for Landon Capital. The sender is my father's family office."

I placed down another document. "This is the authorization Fernandez Properties gave me personally to screen advisory firms on their behalf."

A third document followed. "This is the joint investment memo from St. James Fund and the Moretti Trust. Kane Consulting was allowed into the room because I signed a personal guarantee."

With every sheet I placed on the table, Julian lost another shade of color.

"These clients are not Kane Consulting's inheritance," I said. "They are credit I loaned you."

He stared at the papers. "You had this ready?"

"Not ready," I corrected. "Available. There is a difference. I simply never needed to use it before."

The conference room door opened, and Clara rushed in without waiting to be invited.

"You cannot do this," she snapped. "The teams worked nights for those accounts. People depend on those contracts. You cannot just call them personal resources and walk away. That is not business. That is capital bullying."

I looked at her. "Yesterday you said I was absent, abusing expenses, and using company resources for myself. If all those resources belonged to the company, then you should be fine without me."

At last she understood. She had stolen my seat because she thought there was gold under the chair. She didn’t realize the gold had never been under the chair. It had been behind me.

Julian rubbed his eyes like a man trying to wake from an expensive nightmare. "What do you want?"

"Three things." I placed a list on the table. "First, withdraw the internal notice and issue a public apology. Second, reimburse every unauthorized use of my accounts, including the Raven Club, black car service, client gifts, and project costs I paid personally. Third, vacate the thirty-ninth floor on Seventh Avenue by five o'clock tomorrow."

His head snapped up. "Have you lost your mind? That is our office."

"No." I opened another file. "That floor is held by the Moretti family trust. Your lease expires today. Under the contract, if you stay without renewal, you become an unlawful holdover tenant."

"The building is yours too?"

"Not mine. It is held in my daughter's trust."

My phone buzzed. Dominic had texted.

[Property team is downstairs. Notary and new tenant representative are with them.]

I stood. "You have the afternoon, Julian."

His voice came out hoarse. "Alessia, for old time's sake..."

"When you put my name in a company-wide notice and let everyone call me a thief, did you think about old time's sake? That account is closed. From now on, we follow contracts."

Outside, the elevator chimed. A property manager, two lawyers in dark suits, a notary, and a representative from a Manhattan hedge fund walked into reception.

Through the glass wall, Clara saw them and went white.

Yesterday she thought she had taken my office.

Today she learned she had been sitting in a room whose lease had already expired.