Chapter 5 - The Trap Springs
By 2:00 AM, news of the corporate purge had spread through the luxury hospitality industry like wildfire.
Marcus was escorted out of the Grand Crest Hotel by security—the very security guards he had commanded hours earlier. Standing on the curb in his tailored tuxedo, without a car, without credit cards, and with a blacked-out phone, he looked broken.
Chloe stood beside him, shivering in her paper jumpsuit, clutching a plastic bag containing her personal belongings.
"Marcus... what is happening?" Chloe sobbed, pulling on his arm. "Fix this! Call your bank! Call your driver!"
"Shut up, Chloe!" Marcus snapped, shoving her hand away. "I need to think!"
He walked over to a nearby payphone—a rare sight in the modern city—and used the few physical coins he had in his pocket to call his long-time friend and business partner, Julian Vance (no relation to Arthur, but a board member Marcus thought was loyal to him).
"Julian! Thank God," Marcus breathed into the receiver. "Isabella has lost her mind. She brought in Arthur Vance's lawyers. They're trying to freeze me out. I need you to convene an emergency board meeting right now and vote her off!"
There was a long silence on the other end of the line.
"Julian? Are you there?"
"Marcus," Julian’s voice was heavy, drained of all camaraderie. "Did you really not know?"
"Know what?"
"Isabella isn't just Arthur Vance's daughter. She is the principal trustee of the Vance Family Trust. She holds 75% of the voting shares across every enterprise you managed. The rest of us on the board? We were appointed by her father twenty years ago to protect her."
Marcus felt his knees go weak. "What... what are you saying?"
"I'm saying you were never the boss, Marcus. You were an manager brought in to execute her vision. When you started acting like a king, we let it slide because the profits were good. But when you treated her like trash? When you brought your mistress into her mother's suite? You destroyed yourself."
"Julian, please, you have to help me! I built these hotels!"
"You built nothing, Marcus. You signed the paperwork she put in front of you. The emergency board meeting already happened thirty minutes ago. The vote was unanimous. You are out. And Marcus? The legal team found the shell company you set up in the Cayman Islands for Chloe. The auditors are turning everything over to the FBI in the morning."
May you like
The line went click, followed by a harsh dial tone.
Marcus dropped the receiver. It swung back and forth on its metal cord, hitting the glass of the phone booth with a dull, rhythmic thud.
