18. Tristan #2
“You destroyed yourself, Genevieve,” Tristan said. “You assumed you were untouchable just because you whispered in my ear during meetings and insulted my wife.”
“I was protecting your focus!” she cried. “Marianne never understood the stakes of this merger!”
Hearing his wife’s name cross her lips only proved him right. Marianne understood the stakes better than anyone in this glass box. She proved it by walking away from thirty million dollars and scrubbing baseboards just to escape the venom Genevieve gladly peddled.
“You are nothing but an incompetent nepo-hire,” Tristan said, keeping his tone level and cold. “And I am done protecting you.”
Genevieve clutched the edge of the table. The blood drained from her fingertips as she stared at him. She shook her head, refusing to accept the catastrophic numbers.
“I held this acquisition together for the last four weeks!” she yelled. Tears welled in the corners of her eyes, ruining her expensive makeup. “I put my blood into this firm!”
Tristan pulled his hands from his pockets and looked down at them. The knuckles were raw, split, and wrapped in cheap bandages from hours of manual labor. He earned every drop of that blood. Genevieve did not know the meaning of actual labor.
“You’re a parasite,” Tristan said.
He dropped his hands back to his sides.
“The Lancaster Group is liquidating the acquisitions department at nine o’clock tomorrow morning,” he said. “Your division is the first line item on their chopping block.”
Genevieve released her grip on the wood. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. She looked toward Winston for salvation, but the patriarch was too busy staring at the legal death warrant on the table to intervene. The old man offered her no cover.
Tristan pointed toward the glass double doors leading out to the corridor.
“You hold zero power in this room, so get out of my sight.”
Genevieve turned and bolted for the exit. Her heels clattered wildly against the floorboards as she fled the room. The doors swung shut behind her.
The sudden vacuum of sound amplified the hum of the overhead ventilation.
At the far end of the table, Winston leaned against his chair.
His color deepened as he struggled to comprehend the irreversible equity transfer.
The remaining independent directors scrambled out of their seats.
They shoved their digital tablets into their briefcases, desperate to escape the fallout.
Eleanor pushed back from the far end of the table. She stood up, holding her posture straight against the backdrop of the terrified executives. She reached down and gripped the handle of her handbag. The handle squeaked under her tight grip. She forced her chin high, refusing to look like a victim.
“Sit back down, Marcus,” Eleanor commanded, directing her voice at a fleeing board member. “The Hawthorne family does not adjourn meetings early.”
The executive kept his head down, pushing past the empty chairs to reach the hallway. The rest of the directors followed him, flooding out of the room. Eleanor’s jaw tightened. She turned her glare toward her son.
“Control yourself, Tristan,” Eleanor said. “You are causing a scene, and you are upsetting the directors.”
Tristan slowly turned around. He faced his mother. The cold, sterile draft sweeping down from the ceiling vents washed over his shoulders. He anchored his weight, refusing to flinch or lower his gaze.
“There is no board left to manage, Mother,” Tristan said. “They belong to Lancaster now.”
Eleanor adjusted the lapel of her suit. She treated the corporate slaughter like a minor inconvenience disrupting her afternoon schedule.
“Are we quite finished with this ridiculous theatrical display, Tristan?” she asked. “Hand them the firm if you must throw a fit. Your father and I possess the family estate, and we hardly require this office to maintain our lives.”
She actually believed the holding company was just a name. She thought her last name alone made her bulletproof. She stood in the wreckage of a massive empire and assumed the brick walls of her mansion would shield her.
She actually thinks she is untouchable.
“You can keep the empty brick mansion, Mother,” Tristan said.
He stepped closer to the edge of the table. He stared at the expensive bag in her grip. He knew exactly which subsidiary account paid for the imported leather. She viewed Marianne as a pedestrian liability, yet Eleanor relied on corporate dividends to fund every single breath she took.
“But the holding company pays for the private aviation,” he continued. “It pays for your limitless expense accounts, and the philanthropic endowment that buys your seats at the charity galas.”
Eleanor squeezed the handle of her bag. She stared at him, waiting for him to break eye contact and apologize for the threat. Tristan held her gaze. He relished the exact moment the panic finally reached her eyes.
She thought she was completely untouchable. She thought the private jet to Milan and the endless stream of caterers at the estate were a divine right. Now, he was cutting the tether.