Chapter 161 Tainted

Chapter 161 Tainted
IRIS

I opened the image files on my laptop screen, the bright resolution illuminating the dark corners of my office with a cold, rewarding glow. My opening moves were tracking perfectly. I had quietly hired a private investigator, a physical spy whose only job was to shadow Zara and Kai the exact moment they were announced as permanent editorial partners. The investigator had followed them all the way to their out of town work trip, capturing the perfect sequence of psychological weapons. The first file contained a shot of Zara automatically anchoring herself to Kai’s sleeve in a crowded corridor, and the next showed them laughing intimately beside the archives at Evercrest.

I didn't deliver the proof to Damon myself. I had my investigator send those photographs to his email through an anonymous server link. I knew the tragic, unresolved history Kai shared with Zara would act like an absolute match to a room full of old gasoline, fracturing his peace and throwing their relationship into total chaos.

But the real execution initialized last night. My spy had tailed Zara and Damon to a downtown lounge, capturing a live image of the secret twenty fifth birthday surprise zara had organized for him.
I didn't hesitate. I immediately instructed my investigator to forward the location data directly to Thomas Thorne’s personal executive secretary at the right timing. I knew Thomas was navigating a high stakes corporate audit and urgently required Damon’s signature to finalize the maritime shipping ports. More importantly, I knew Thomas despised Zara Corven, viewing her as a outsider who had no right to stand beside his successor. Having the anonymous proof drop into his hands at eight in the evening meant Thomas would march into that lounge himself, witness his golden boy playing the fool for a distraction, and violently crush their sanctuary right in front of their closest friends.

The strategy was working flawlessly, with this suffocating relationship pressure, I was ensuring that Damon could barely function at his desk. His mind was too busy bleeding over Zara, his paranoia over Kai Ryder eating him alive from the inside out, while his father's dangerous leverage choked out his remaining focus. And in a high stakes empire like Thorne Global, a distracted leader is a dead leader.

"Are the third-quarter port acquisition frameworks completely loaded?" I asked, stepping across the connecting threshold into Elias’s private office suite, my tone smooth and entirely controlled.

Elias was standing by the floor to ceiling glass windows. He looked sharp, his tailored dark suit fitting his broad shoulders perfectly, but the dark, dangerous ambition burning in his pupils told me our competition had officially turned into a complete obsession. He didn't want to just co-lead just the shipping project anymore. He wanted the throne.

"The frameworks are finalized, Iris," Elias rumbled, turning his head to lock his eyes onto mine with a heavy, unyielding intensity. "Thomas just paged the branch. We have a major emergency board meeting in ten minutes. Damon completely botched the legal compliance registry for the northern docks because he was too busy fighting with his girlfriend last night."

I walked over, sliding my hands over his shoulders, making the eye contact so close and deeply supportive that he couldn't look away. "This is your moment, babe. Step into that boardroom and take what is legally yours."

"I'm taking it of course," Elias growled, his fists tightening as he grabbed his gold-embossed presentation folders. "I'm done standing in his shadow."

Ten minutes later, the heavy double doors of the top-floor executive suite clicked shut, plunging everyone into an absolute, suffocating silence. Thomas Thorne sat at the head of the black marble table, his commanding presence radiating a terrifying, clinical fury. Natasha sat beside him, her arms crossed tightly over her silk dress, her eyes cutting through Damon like a pair of knives. Damon sat across from us, his dark eyes pitch black after that humiliation at his party.

"The northern dock acquisition is completely stalled because of a structural compliance fracture in the liability insurance archives," Thomas announced, his baritone voice dropping to a low, lethal register that turned the entire room to ice. He slammed his gold fountain pen against the glass table with a sharp click, staring dead at his younger son. "Damon, you were given absolute authority to secure this registry by midnight. Instead, the legal team tells me the data pools are completely vacant. Your performance is a total, pathetic embarrassment to this family name."

Damon didn't yell. He just stared at the table, his chest heaving, his breathing ragged and wild as the crushing weight of his father’s leverage choked out his composure. "The server network had a baseline error, sir. I was re-validating the..."

"I am tired of your excuses!! I honestly do not care about them." Thomas roared, his voice booming off the high ceilings like a physical strike, completely shattering the corporate peace. "You are spending your energy running after an outsider while this empire is navigating a federal grand jury! If you cannot handle the premium assets of this company, I will find someone who can."

Elias stood up instantly, his massive frame creating a rigid, powerful wall across the table as he caught my subtle, encouraging nod from the gallery row.

"Father, I volunteer to take over the entire development project," Elias announced smoothly, his deep voice resonant and entirely controlled as he slid his folders across the marble table toward Thomas. "Damon is clearly overwhelmed by his current personal obligations. I’ve already drafted the structural compliance framework for the northern docks independently. Page twelve houses the unedited receipts and the proper maritime compliance tags. I can lead the transition alone and clear the deficit before Monday morning."

Damon’s head snapped up, his face turning a dark, dangerous shade of crimson as the brotherly hatred violently flared into the open room. "Elias, shut your mouth! Why would you even come after me like this!! This is my project! You don't know a damn thing about the asset distribution....."

"He knows how to deliver a clean report on time, Damon!" Natasha violently interjected, her voice twisting into an expression of pure, unyielding disapproval as she glared across the table. "Look at yourself! You are unravelling over that girl while your brother is working through the night to protect our family values."

Thomas Thorne paused. He slowly reached out, his heavy hand pulling Elias’s folders toward him, scanning the meticulously organized data with a sharp, genuine appreciation. A definitive nod of approval escaped his lips.

"The northern project is officially in your hands, Elias," Thomas announced coldly, completely ignoring Damon, who stood there looking thoroughly defeated, his fists shaking with a helpless, silent fury. "Effective immediately, Damon is stripped of his leadership authority over the port acquisitions. You will manage the asset distribution briefings alone...."

"You can't take away this project from me just like that!" Damon roared as he violently shot out of his chair. He loomed over the table, his eyes pitch black with a dangerous, explosive desperation. "You permanently shattered my dream to be an athlete, Thomas! You forced me into this space against my will, and you have humiliated me countlessly in front of this entire board because I didn't want this life! Now that I am finally sitting at this table, trying to at least show I am very much competent to the very people you have embarrassed me in front of, you want to strip me of my project? I can as well leave this company but no. Am not stepping down."

"Damon, sit down and hold your tongue!" Natasha violently interjected, her voice striking through the boardroom with a strict authority that perfectly matched her husband's. She stood up, glaring across the marble with pure disapproval. "Your father is entirely right to question your placement! You clearly do not know what your priorities are anymore. You are being thoroughly stubborn and rebellious, unravelling over that girl..... What a joke."

Damon’s chest heaved, his ragged breathing filling the suffocating silence of the room as he looked from his mother’s furious face back to his father’s clinical glare. He was backed into an absolute corner, but the raw, unyielding pride in his jaw refused to break.

Thomas Thorne paused, his commanding presence radiating total control as he slowly leaned forward, tapping his gold fountain pen against the glass table with a sharp, definitive click.

"I am giving you one final chance to show your competence, Damon," Thomas murmured smoothly, his baritone voice dropping to a low, lethal register that turned the air to absolute ice. "Elias will co-lead this asset distribution briefings with you too, immediately. If you slip up even a fraction of an inch again, your brother takes the entire project alone, and you will be completely removed from the development chain. And let's make something very clear, son. You have no other choice but to keep working here. You know better than to walk out that door."

Damon slowly lowered himself back into his leather seat, his jaw tightening until the bone looked ready to snap. I sat back in my gallery chair, a cold, calculated satisfaction vibrating through my chest as Elias took his seat at the right hand of his father. Damon might have survived this one but my gradual process was moving flawlessly. I am going to ensure his own father stripped him of every single piece of luxury, wealth, and inheritance he owned. I wanted him and Zara entirely ruined. I wanted him to feel the absolute, suffocating agony of losing everything he has, so that he finally understood exactly what it felt like to make someone lose her mother to the cold, concrete walls of a federal prison cell.
Thomas was trusting Elias completely now, the crown was shifting, and as I locked my eyes onto my boyfriend's confident profile, I knew it won't be long till Damon officially falls to the dirt.