Chapter 7 - The Counteroffensive
Back at corporate headquarters, the air was suffocatingly tense. With forty-eight hours until the shareholder vote, Alejandro had already leaked rumors to the financial press regarding Valeria’s supposed mental instability following her domestic scandal.
"Stock prices dropped 3% this morning," Gabriel warned, pacing nervously. "International investment funds are spooked. If Alejandro sways the minority shareholders, you lose operational control—trust fund or not."
Valeria stared into the crib where her son slept, blissfully ignorant of the war waging around him. Wiping away a stray tear of rage, she turned to Gabriel, her eyes burning with icy fury.
"I won't let that monster win. My father didn't die of a natural heart attack, Gabriel. I know it. Alejandro cornered him, isolated him... and now he’s trying to do the same to me."
"What’s the plan? We don't have enough admissible evidence to put him in handcuffs before Monday."
"I don't need him in handcuffs by Monday, Gabriel," she replied with a deadly smile. "I just need to annihilate his reputation where it hurts him most: in front of the board. Call our former CFO. I want to know what else was inside that wooden box my father left behind. You said there were patents... What kind of patents?"
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Gabriel’s eyes widened as realization struck him. "Project Phoenix... The clean-energy tech your father worked on for his final five years. Alejandro tried to sell it off under the table to an overseas consortium."
"Bingo. If Alejandro tries to sell this company, he’s selling air—because the intellectual property rights for that technology don't belong to the corporation... they belong to my son."
