Chapter 7 - The Arrest
The detectives didn’t wait for formalities.
As soon as Noah confirmed the signal match, Detective Vance—no relation to the jeweler—stepped forward, reading Grant his rights while clicking cold steel handcuffs around his wrists.
Grant didn’t fight back. He didn’t scream or protest his innocence anymore. He simply stared at me with a look of pure, unadulterated venom as the detectives hauled him toward the elevators.
“You won’t get away with running the company alone, Eleanor,” Grant hissed as the elevator doors opened. “The board will tear you apart without me.”
“The board just witnessed you try to assassinate me,” I replied coldly. “The only thing getting torn apart today is your career.”
The doors closed, swallowing him away.
Silence descended upon the boardroom once again, heavier this time, but cleared of the suffocating tension that had hung over it for months. Arthur Sterling cleared his throat, looking at me with a new, profound level of respect.
“Well,” Arthur said, folding the audit report and placing it neatly on the mahogany table. “It appears our agenda for today requires a slight revision.”
The vote on the western division was not only postponed; it was unanimously cancelled. Instead, the board voted unanimously to restructure the executive leadership, granting me absolute, undisputed control of Ashford Meridian as Chairwoman and CEO.
When the meeting finally adjourned two hours later, the board members filed out, offering respectful nods and words of solidarity.
Only Noah and I remained in the vast, sunlit room.
He stood near the floor-to-ceiling windows, looking out over the sprawling expanse of Chicago beneath a breaking sky where the sun was finally burning through the winter clouds.
“Nice view,” Noah murmured, clutching his radio receiver like a security blanket.
“It’s even better when you own the building,” I smiled, walking over to stand beside him.
I looked down at the young man who had risked everything—his freedom, his safety, his meager belongings—to save a stranger on a freezing sidewalk.
“Victor tells me you’re a self-taught electronics engineer,” I said.
Noah shrugged, shoving his hands into his new coat pockets. “I read a lot of books from the public library. And I like taking things apart to see how they work.”
“How would you like to take apart the security and telemetry systems for Ashford Meridian’s global logistics network?” I asked. “Starting with a full-ride scholarship to the Illinois Institute of Technology, a paid apprenticeship in our tech division, and an apartment that doesn't leak when it rains?”
Noah turned his head sharply, staring at me as if he thought he were hallucinating.
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“Are you serious?”
“Dead serious,” I said, resting a hand gently on my stomach as my daughter gave one final, gentle nudge. “Every company needs someone who knows how to spot a signal before it breaks your heart.”
