Chapter 6 - The Thirty-Second Floor
The private elevator ride to the thirty-second floor felt remarkably short. With every floor indicator light ticking upward, Greer felt a profound sense of reclamation washing over her. The steel doors slid open with a soft chime, revealing the minimalist, sunlit expanse of the Maddox House executive suite.
The receptionist, a young woman named Chloe whom Greer had personally hired two years ago, looked up from her desk with wide, startled eyes.
“Mrs. Maddox—I… I didn't know you were coming in today,” Chloe stammered, glancing nervously down the hallway toward the executive boardroom.
“Good morning, Chloe,” Greer said, her voice calm and carrying a crisp authority that made the young woman sit up straight. “Are the board members assembled?”
“Yes, ma’am. Mr. Maddox, Ms. Quinn, Mrs. Maddox Senior, and the regional directors all went into the main conference room about ten minutes ago. They… they locked the doors for a private executive session.”
“Thank you,” Greer said smoothly. She didn't break stride. With Rachel Sloan walking steps behind her like a silent shadow of retribution, Greer marched straight down the polished hardwood hallway toward the frosted glass doors of the boardroom.
She didn't knock. She simply reached out, gripped the brushed-steel handle, and pushed the heavy doors open with a sharp, echoing click.
The conversation inside stopped dead.
Around the long mahogany conference table, the tableau of betrayal was laid out in full daylight. Landon sat at the head of the table with his sleeves rolled up, looking pale and haggard. Harper Quinn sat immediately to his right, wearing a tailored cream blazer that eerily mirrored the color palette of Greer’s stolen nursery decor. Evelyn sat further down the table, her expression shifting instantly from smug confidence to stark, frozen shock.
Two external board members, old associates of Landon’s family who usually rubber-stamped whatever executives put in front of them, turned their heads in unison toward the doorway.
“Greer?” Landon breathed out, stumbling slightly as he pushed his chair back from the table. “What… what are you doing here? How did you get past security?”
“It’s my building, Landon,” Greer said evenly, stepping fully into the boardroom with Rachel right beside her. She walked unhurriedly toward the center of the table, placing her leather briefcase down with a deliberate, echoing thud against the mahogany wood. “And according to the corporate registry, I still hold fifty-one percent of the voting shares. I don't need a visitor’s pass to enter my own boardroom.”
Harper recovered her composure first, leaning forward with an oily, patronizing smile that didn't reach her eyes. “Greer, sweetie, you shouldn’t have dragged yourself out of bed. Landon told us you were resting at your cousin’s house. This executive session is strictly confidential regarding corporate restructuring, and honestly, given your recent medical complications, you really ought to be—”
“Save it, Harper,” Greer cut her off with a whip-crack sharpness that made the vice president flinch back into her seat. Greer turned her gaze directly toward the two external board members. “Gentlemen. Before Mr. Maddox calls this emergency vote to strip my executive authority and approve a fraudulent medical leave, I suggest you open the encrypted portfolio currently being distributed by my legal counsel.”
Rachel Sloan unzipped her folio with surgical precision, sliding thick, bound packets of paper across the polished mahogany table directly in front of the external directors.
Landon’s face drained of what little color he had left. “Don't look at those,” he barked, slamming his palm onto the table. “This is a malicious, unstable overreaction by a woman suffering from severe postpartum psychosis! She isn't in her right mind—”
“Mr. Maddox,” Rachel interjected, her voice smooth, icy, and dripping with legal menace. “I would strongly advise you to watch your defamatory language. Every single document in front of these directors has been certified, time-stamped, and filed with the state superior court this morning.”
The external directors—veteran businessmen who suddenly realized they were sitting at the epicenter of an impending corporate bomb—feverishly flipped open the packets. The top pages displayed clear, undeniable bank routing records, shell company incorporation papers for HP Strategic Holdings, and unedited metadata logs proving that millions in corporate assets had been systematically siphoned away behind the founder’s back while she was recovering from childbirth.
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And right beneath the financial fraud documents lay something even more damning: copies of the staged newborn portrait session, complete with Harper wearing Greer’s heirloom pearls and signing adoption-adjacent transition forms as June’s “primary caregiver.”
The silence in the boardroom grew so heavy that the hum of the overhead air conditioning sounded like a roaring engine.
