Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
ISLA
I reach the front stairs of my father’s West Village brownstone, the adrenaline from this morning’s press conference reigniting now that I have to explain myself.
I knock once, then let myself in with my childhood key.
“It’s only me.” I leave my purse on the entryway table, the familiar creak of the floorboard beneath my heel sending a flicker of nostalgia through my chest. I spent my adolescence here. These rooms are filled with perfect memories and heart-warming comfort. “Dad?”
There’s no response, but I know he’s home.
This Monday morning check-in was a stipulation to my interim role, packaged as support, yet clearly meant for evaluation.
The scent of freshly brewed tea draws me toward the kitchen, past framed photos of my mother, timeless in silk blouses and bright lipstick, alongside art worth more than the average apartment.
Sure enough, my father sits at the kitchen counter, his reading glasses perched low on his nose, his attention on the cell in his hand.
“Good morning,” I offer gently.
He glances up, his expression unreadable. “Is it?”
Ouch.
I’d prepared for disappointment, yet I didn’t expect the chill of it to crack the hardened shell of my thickened skin.
He sets his phone down. “Tea?”
I nod, grateful for the civility before what I assume is the inevitable storm.
He moves slowly, grabbing the spare cup and saucer on the counter, pouring from a glass teapot. “Take a seat.”
I settle onto a barstool across the island from him, my muscles tense despite my best efforts as he slides the cup and saucer toward me.
“I saw your press conference.”
Of course he did.
“It was necessary.” I palm the delicate china and take a sip of steaming liquid, holding the heat against my tongue in a sacrificial mark of penance.
“Why?” he asks simply.
That’s the problem with my father; he never raises his voice. His patience is the punishment. He rules conflict with calm, like a slowly building gas leak, until you’re begging for a match.
“I wanted to set the tone for my leadership.” I struggle to find the words to excuse the giant leaps I’ve made mere days after gaining power. “To draw a line in the sand.”
He sighs, slow and tired. “Isla, I know you’ve had to fight harder than most. That you’ve faced a brand of boardroom misogyny I can’t pretend to understand…”
“But?” I brace for impact.
“But you’re taking liberties too quickly. This isn’t the way to make your mark.”
I place my cup back down on the saucer, my heart thudding. “All I did was reinforce our company values.”
He cocks his head. “So you didn’t sever a relationship with one of our biggest clients without giving me a word of warning?”
I raise my chin. “I’ve given notice to ethically misaligned clients before. I’ve been doing it for years. This didn’t warrant your approval.”
“It did when it’s the Cavallo Group.”
The name stirs heat low in my belly, along with annoyance, resentment, and something else I don’t want to define.
“Well, I apologize.” I maintain my perfect posture. “But you’re not supposed to be concerning yourself with day-to-day operations. You’re on medical—”
“This only makes me more concerned.” He speaks over me in a rare show of authority. “Maybe you’re not ready for this.”
The words hit hard.
Blunt force.
I swallow over the sudden tightness of my throat and reach for the teacup again, needing something to steady my hands. “I’m ready, Dad. I’ve been ready for a long time. It might seem like I’m moving fast, but the truth is, I’ve been preparing for years. I just never had the jurisdiction to act.”
“You may think you’re prepared but you’ve blindsided everyone else—me, staff, clients.”
“I told you about my concerns with the Cavallo Group months ago.”
“And I told you to leave them alone.” Censure creeps into his voice.
I shake my head, replaying the conversation we’d had in my mind. “You said you’d think about axing them.”
“It was a polite refusal, Isla. A signal to drop the subject. I assumed you’d understood the subtext.” His clarification stings, subtle but sharp, making my inner child shrivel.
In my thirty-two years of life, I can count the times my father has been disappointed in me on one hand. None have hit harder than this. And yet I still can’t quit thinking he’s wrong.
“They’re poisoning their acquisitions,” I bite out. “It’s a bad look for us to enable their behavior.”
“What they do with our reports is their business—not ours. You overstepped.”
“No,” I state firmly. “I made the right call.”
“No, sweetheart.” He gives me a sad smile. “You didn’t. And now you need to walk back what you’ve done.”
My stomach knots. “Walk what back?”
“The broken partnership. The press conference. The damage. Redefine your statement. Soften it. Retract it. I don’t care how you spin this. Just make sure it’s done before close of business.”
It’s a three-pronged ambush—dread, anger, and shock—each taking their turn on me with surgical precision.
“Retract it?” I choke out. “What would I be retracting exactly? My demand for ethical partnerships? That we expect our clients to have integrity? I didn’t mention the Cavallo Group by name.”
“Because you didn’t need to. Everyone’s already connecting the dots.”
“Says who?” I demand.
He raises his brows, the subtlest of reprimands that holds the weight of a slap. “Raffael called me this morning.”
My face heats like wildfire, molten and merciless. “How? I disabled your business SIM. Only private calls should come through.”
“The Cavallos are more than clients. They’ve had my personal number for years.”
That snitching motherfucker.
“We share a long history, Isla,” he adds. “They’re not our enemy.”
Like hell they’re not.
Raffael is turning out to be a nemesis worthy of a meticulously curated vendetta.
“I’m not issuing a retraction,” I say with finality.
His lips thin. “Then I’ll have no choice but to return to the office and handle this myself.”
“You’d do that to me?” I drop my teacup to the saucer, the crockery clattering loudly as I stand, my stool scraping against the tile.
“I don’t want to.” He holds my gaze with tired eyes. “You’re giving me no choice.”
“That’s bullshit. You’d never demand this of a male counterpart.”
“Isla…”
“You know I’m right.” I glare. “If I were a man this would’ve stopped at the verbal scolding.
Maybe I’d be on probation. And these weekly catch-ups would be reframed to describe exactly what they are—micromanagement.
But there’s no way you’d demand the humiliation of a public retraction if I weren’t a woman. ”
He winces, the curve of his shoulders losing their rigidity. “It’s more complicated—”
“No.”
I’m not going to back down. And my father is not taking my CEO title. At least not prematurely.
If he decides to return to work in a few months, with medical approval, then that’s something I’ll have to deal with. But I won’t let this opportunity be taken from me because of Raffael Cavallo.
“They’ll survive the breakup, Dad. And we’ll be all the better for it.” I turn and start for the hall.
“You have until five o’clock, Isla.” he calls after me.
I don’t respond.
Don’t look back.
I snatch my purse off the entry table and continue walking until I’m out the front door and face-to-face with Fletcher—my father’s long-time driver, now mine by default.
He opens the back door of the black Bentley parked at the curb, his graying hair gleaming in the sunlight. “Where to now, Ms. Cross?”
“The office.” I stride to the vehicle and slide onto the leather seat. “Take the long way.”
The drive is a blur of fluctuating anger and regret I’m determined to smother before I have to face curious employees. Fletcher navigates past the park where my mother used to take me, then the old deli we’d stop at after school.
Every corner carries a whisper from my childhood, the memories echoing insecurities I’ll never outrun.
My parents always wanted a son.
Someone to carry the family name. Someone strong enough—worthy enough—to inherit the empire my grandfather built.
They tried. Again and again.
But each pregnancy after mine resulted in miscarriage or stillbirth, until my mother couldn’t bear the weight of it anymore.
I was twelve when she took her own life.
Too young to understand why I wasn’t good enough, despite the straight A’s and good behavior. Yet too old to ignore how much power a pair of chromosomes could hold over the shape of my future.
Maybe I’m not cut out for this.
Maybe I overplayed my hand.
Maybe I should’ve waited… Been smarter… Less… me.
I glare out the side window, doubt eating away at my insides.
I let it fuel me once we reach our building, the raging storm a fortifying shield as I stalk across the CrossPoint floor and close myself into my office.
I dump my purse onto the couch, peel off my blazer, and head straight for my private kitchenette.
Caffeine isn’t optional.
A soft knock sounds behind me, followed by the gentle squeak of door hinges as I retrieve a mug from an under-bench cupboard.
“You okay?” Quinn asks, the door clicking shut.
I paste on a smile and glance over my shoulder. “Yep. Good.”
“Don’t bullshit me.” She crosses the room, takes the mug from my hand, and places it beneath the coffee maker, pressing the necessary buttons to make it splutter to life. “If your forced posture wasn’t a dead giveaway, the devastation in your eyes is.”
I cringe. “Is it that obvious?”
She shrugs, her attention on the stream of liquid filling my mug. “To someone who catalogs micro-expressions for fun—yeah.”
I lean against the counter with a sigh.
“Was it the meeting with your dad?” She retrieves my filled mug and hands it over.
“How’d you guess?” I accept her offering with a half-hearted smile and walk past her, not ready for more of her forensic-level people-reading. “He wants me to retract my statement. Today. I have until five o’clock.”
“Yikes.” Her footsteps follow. “What are we going to do?”
We.
God, I love her commitment to camaraderie, even when the ship’s on fire and I’m the one strapped to the wheel.
“I’m not backing down.” I move behind my desk and sink into the chair.
“And I’m sure that will go over brilliantly.” She nods, her gaze lazily sweeping my spacious office like we’re not actively discussing the implosion of my entire career. “Want me to prep a backup plan in case your radio silence doesn’t slap the way you want it to?”
“Would it involve Raffael Cavallo’s head on a spike?” I take a gulp of coffee and groan at the delicious hit of caffeine.
“That’s definitely an option. Although, death by poison would require far less cleanup.”
I grin despite myself. “Why do I feel like that’s something you’ve actually researched?”
“Maybe because this brain runs seventeen tabs at once, and none of them like to idle. Deep dives on obscure topics are basically my love language.”
And how I adore her for it. Still, asking her to create a backup plan to manage my problems isn’t something I can ask her to do.
“Thanks, but I think I need to survey this crash site on my own.”
She throws me a pitying look, sad, pouty lips and deep ocean eyes that scream men are such assholes. “You sure?”
I nod. “Positive.”
She doesn’t budge. Just stands there, watching me with that hyper-focused stare.
“There’s no need for the human lie-detector routine. I’m okay. I’ll figure it out.”
“Well, if you change your mind…” She starts for the door.
“You’re the first person I’ll call.”
She’s the only person I’d call.
I don’t trust anyone else in the office. Not with my pride or my insecurities.
The rest of the day drags.
Back-to-back meetings. Passive-aggressive emails. Clients doubting my readiness. Colleagues testing my resolve.
I’m no closer to figuring out a plan to appease my father by the time lunch rolls around.
I eat at my desk, the salad limp and flavorless.
2:45 p.m.
Each glance at the clock winds my tension tighter, the lack of communication from my father pressing in like a held breath.
3:05 p.m.
I start drafting a retraction. One paragraph, then two.
By the third, my jaw’s locked and my pulse is sprinting, each word a personal betrayal right up until I type my name at the end. But I can’t bring myself to upload it to the company website.
4:45 p.m.
I pace back and forth past the window, not seeing the skyline, only Raffael’s smug smirk from my father’s birthday party. The one he wore as he insulted my dress like I was a Christmas ornament reject instead of his equal.
4:50 p.m.
If I do this my reputation will never recover.
4:55 p.m.
Every glance at the clock makes my stomach twist tighter.
Then—
5:00 p.m.
I hold my breath and wait for the world to end, my blood thundering in my ears. But… nothing happens.
No scathing phone call. No authoritative email. There’s no word from my father. Or the snitch.
I exhale, the rapid vacuum of breath escaping like pressure from a valve.
I reclaim my chair, my spine straight, my lips tugging into a hint of a smirk.
I spend the next hour tying up loose ends, pretending the weight in my chest hasn’t shifted into something dangerously close to pride.
I didn’t back down. Didn’t surrender.
It isn’t until I’m preparing to leave for the night—taking my mass of coffee mugs and water glasses to the kitchenette—that a shadow darkens my office doorway.
“Sorry to interrupt, Ms. Cross.” Fletcher’s voice is polite, his expression apologetic. “Your father’s requested your company for dinner. I’ve been asked to escort you right away.”