Chapter 150 The transition

Chapter 150 The transition
Elma's POV

"So once the transition's finalized, we'll need updated signatory authority on all three accounts." Robert Chen slid a folder across the table toward me. "Should be a quick fix once everything's official."

I stared at him for a second. "What transition?"
He blinked, glancing between me and the folder like he expected me to already know exactly what he meant. "The ownership restructuring. I assumed you'd been briefed.”
A cold feeling settled in my chest. Ownership restructuring…What the fuck is he talking about.
"Briefed on what, Robert?"

"The board notice." He pulled out his own copy, sliding it toward me, his easy banking-executive smile faltering a little. "It went out three days ago. I have it right here, if you…."
"I haven't seen any board notice." I picked up the paper he'd handed me, my eyes scanning through it quickly to actually process the words. Majority stake acquisition, voting shares, effective pending shareholder approval.

"That's strange," Robert said, though his voice had gone careful now. "It listed you as a recipient. I assumed…."
"Who's acquiring the shares?" I cut him off, my eyes finally landing on the section I needed, the entity name printed in plain, unremarkable font like it wasn't about to unravel everything I'd spent years building.

Ashford Holdings LLC.

I didn't recognize the name. That fact alone made my stomach drop further. If it had said Cole Enterprises, at least I would have understood the shape of what I was looking at. This told me nothing except that whoever was behind it had gone out of their way to make sure it told me nothing.

"I don't actually know," Robert admitted. "It came through as a private holding entity. My understanding is they've been accumulating shares gradually over the past several months, through secondary market purchases, some private sales from minority stakeholders." He hesitated. "Enough to trigger the disclosure threshold, apparently."

"How much do they have?"

He checked his own copy again, and something in his expression told me the number wasn't going to be small.
"Just under forty-one percent," he said. "Which, combined with the proxy votes they've apparently already secured from two of your smaller institutional holders, puts them close to a majority position pending the shareholder vote next month."

I sat still, the folder heavy in my hands, my mind racing through every minority stakeholder I could think of and every small institutional investor who'd bought in early when the company was still finding its footing, people I hadn't thought about in years because their stakes had always been too small to matter.
Until apparently, someone had spent months quietly stitching all of those small, forgotten pieces together into something large enough to actually take the whole thing.

"How long ago did the accumulation start?" I asked, keeping my voice level.
Robert checked the notice again. "Filing says the pattern began roughly five months ago, then slowly and steadily spread across multiple brokers so it wouldn't trip any single disclosure early."

Five months….I did the math in my head and I was right, just as I feared. Five months ago was right around the time Hendricks deal closed then my comeback with the Wexford building.
He hadn't just been competing with me on individual deals this whole time, he'd been quietly buying his way into owning me outright.

Those his threats…they weren't just empty threats, he already knew he had an upperhand.
He made sure I never saw it coming and I…I was busy congratulating myself for scoring small, petty victories against him in the meantime.
Of course it wasn't his name on the filing, he'd never be that careless.

"Elma." Robert's voice pulled me back, mow aware he'd walked into the middle of something he hadn't meant to detonate. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine," I said, folding the paper carefully and setting it aside. "I need to reschedule the rest of today. Something's come up.”

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"Ms. Michael, you can't just go in there." His secretary was on her feet the moment I walked past her desk, hurrying to cut me off. "Mr. Cole is in a meeting, you need to…."

I kept walking, didn't even glance her way.
"Ma'am, please." She grabbed for my arm but I pulled free without slowing down, already reaching for the door handle. Behind me, I heard her fumble for the phone on her desk, her voice rising. "Security, I need someone up here right now, I have a…"
I pushed through the double doors before she finished the sentence.

Adrian looked up from his desk, a smirk creeping on his face.
A second later, footsteps pounded down the hallway behind me, and a security guard appeared in the doorway, breathing hard, one hand already reaching for my shoulder. "Ma'am, you need to come with me, you can't…."
"It's fine." Adrian's voice cut through, waving a hand toward the guard without breaking eye contact with me. "Let her in."

The guard hesitated, glancing between us, then stepped back, clearly unhappy about it but unwilling to argue with his boss.
"I'm so sorry, Mr. Cole." His secretary hovered in the doorway. "I tried to stop her…"

"It's fine, Denise." He leaned back in his chair, the smirk growing wider. "Close the door on your way out.”
The door clicked shut behind me. For a moment neither of us said anything.
"So it's gotten to this." My voice cracked and I hated it, hated that he could see it. "You want to steal my company now."

"Steal is a strong word."
"What would you call it?" I wiped angrily at my eyes, furious at the tears gathering there, furious that I couldn't stop them fast enough for him not to see. "You spent five months quietly buying up shares behind a fake company name so I wouldn't see it coming."
"It's business." He stood slowly, starting toward me. "The same business you've been playing this entire time."

"This is my life's work." My voice broke properly now, all the composure I'd walked in with finally cracking apart. "Years of building something out of nothing. Years of proving I could do this on my own, without my sister's name, without my family's money backing every decision. And you're going to take it away because it's nothing to you."

He stopped a few feet away, studying me.
"You love this," I said, my voice shaking. "Watching me like this, falling apart in front of you."
"Maybe," he said quietly.
"Why?" The word tore out of me. "Why do you want to ruin me? What did I ever actually do to deserve this, besides refuse to lose to you?"

He crossed the last of the distance between us, and before I could react, his hand closed around the back of my neck, pulling me toward him, his mouth crashing into mine.
I froze, shock and fury tangled together so tightly I couldn't separate them. He didn't stop, kept sucking on them, I knew it was going to leave a bruise. He took a fistful of my hair, like he'd been waiting months to do exactly this and had no intention of stopping now that he'd started.

Something in me broke loose. I shoved him back hard, my palm connecting with his cheek a half second later, the sound sharp in the quiet office.
He didn't move away. He just stood there, breathing hard, one hand rising slowly to touch his own jaw.

The look in his eyes was far more dangerous than anger.