Chapter 60 Chapter 60
LIANA'S POV
I was taken aback by the knock at the door just as I had managed a moment's respite. I had just tucked Cam into bed, her tiny body curled up in the security of slumber, and my own head was still spinning from the voicemail I had played only a moment before.
I approached the door, the burden in my heart a pressure I could not shake. Opening it, I was not surprised to see Nathan standing there. The man had an unreasonable knack for showing up at the exact moment I needed him.
"You're late," I said dryly, stepping aside so he could enter.
Nathan stepped in, his gaze sweeping the room before settling on me. "Sorry. I've been busy tying up loose ends." He carried a briefcase—a plain one, but I understood what it contained: the final pieces of a puzzle that would, once fitted together, destroy Dominic's universe.
He closed the door, his gaze locking onto mine. "It's time," he said softly but firmly.
I nodded, pulling out a chair and sitting across from him. "What did you discover?"
He opened the briefcase with slow deliberation, and I saw the stack of documents inside. "Everything you needed. The contract, the email chain. But also more than that. Some of the board members had already been suspicious of his modus operandi, but they didn't have the concrete evidence to act upon it."
I leaned forward, my heart pounding. "And now you do?"
"Now, we do," he assured me, pushing a folder across the table to me. "This will put the final nail in his coffin."
I gently opened the folder, scanning through the papers. My hands trembled a bit as I read through the incriminating data. It wasn't only the contract. It was the chain of emails—correspondence from Dominic himself, approving questionable deals, bending rules, even overruling compliance checks. It was everything the board needed to justify his removal.
For a moment, there was elation. This was it. That moment I'd been waiting for. But the victory lasted only for a moment, soon washed away by the knot that grew in my belly. There was more to this, something bigger. Something I was not prepared for.
"Is this enough?" I whispered, careful not to act too rashly.
Nathan's face relaxed. "It's more than enough. But now it's your turn to pull the trigger."
I knew I could see what he was saying without his needing to explain. He was referring to the final step—the moment when the board would shift, when the truth would be out in public for all to witness. And with that done, there was no turning back.
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The other days passed in a blur. The nearer I approached the meeting, the more anxious I felt. The phone calls, the midnight calls to the board members who were already on our side, the preparations—it was all happening so quickly, so suddenly, like the storm I'd been rehearsing had finally come and with all its power.
I had been waiting for the perfect moment. The meeting had to be set up just right. Everyone had to be in the proper position.
And then it happened.
I received another call, this one from my source within the firm. "It's happening," she told me. "The meeting is set. It's happening tomorrow morning."
Tomorrow.
I was ready. This was the moment. It was time to bring it to an end.
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DOMINIC'S POV
I'd had a week of it. The same old routine of keeping the business afloat, calming the devastation of my latest PR breakdown, and keeping up appearances that I was still at the helm. The cracks were starting to show—there were rumors along the corridors, mutterings of my failures—and I could feel each one of them weighing on me like a burden on my shoulders. But I wasn't quite ready to relinquish yet.
I hadn't expected today to be any different.
So when Alicia called me and told me that there was a board meeting in progress, I didn't know what to make of it. There had been no warning. No email, no heads up, nothing.
I stood up from my desk, chair scraping loudly over the floor. "Get me the details," I growled, heading for the door.
She scurried after me. "Dominic, I'm just a messenger. The board—"
I waved her off, already halfway down the hallway. I didn't have time for any more of her empty talk. The shareholders were always a pain, but this? This was a setup.
I entered the boardroom anticipating some kind of argument about what the firm's next move was, or at the very least a few angry investors who had seen the latest scandals unfold and were getting fidgety. What I wasn't prepared for was the stony silence that greeted me the moment I entered.
The moment I entered the room, everyone of those individuals sitting around the table turned to look at me. The atmosphere was different. You could tell. It was like entering a room where everyone had already made up their mind. They were looking at me to sit down, but not a word was said.
"Care to explain what this is?" I stood tall at the head of the table.
Gavin, our chief financial officer, waved for me to sit. "Please, Dominic. Take a seat."
I bristled. "I don't answer to you."
But there was something in Gavin's eyes, something that I didn't find so great. I knew he didn't have the courage to defy me—at least, not yet. That made me hesitate, but only for a moment. If they were going to attempt some kind of gimmick, I wanted to get on with it.
I sat, looking around the room for some sign of why I was there. And then I saw it: the envelopes.
They were going around the table in a circle, one by one. Each person received an envelope, opened it, and began reading. The air grew heavier with each passing second, each face contorting into something unreadable. Shock? Denial?
Then, when the envelope came with me, I grabbed it quietly. I ripped it open quickly, feeling the itch of suspicion rise under my skin.
There was a photocopied version of the document. My own signed name at the end. The words were blurry initially, my mind spinning. But as I read, all of it started making sense.
How did they get this?
It was a contract—one that I had signed. And it was not an everyday contract. It was the one brought to attention by the legal department a few months before. The one pushed aside as a trivial bother. But this time, it was not about the contract. It was the rider attached to it—the side agreements, the bypassing of checks, the illegal provisions.
I looked up at the room, my heart beating fast in my chest. "Where did you get this?"
The room was quiet, aside from the thud of my heart against my eardrums. Everyone avoided my gaze. No one was speaking.
And that was when I understood.
They had everything.
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