Chapter 2 - The Stage Speech That Shattered the Ballroom
The rhythmic click of my heels against the polished hardwood steps of the stage was the only sound in the cavernous ballroom.
Two hundred employees, board members, and tech journalists stood frozen in place, their champagne glasses suspended in mid-air.
I stepped up to the podium, and Chairman Malcolm Reed greeted me with a deep, respectful nod, stepping aside to yield the microphone.
I looked out across the sea of faces, my gaze locking directly onto Julian, who stood rigid in the front row, his face drained of every drop of color, looking like a corpse in a tuxedo. Beside him, Camilla was trembling so violently she had to grip the edge of a banquet table to keep from collapsing.
"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen," I said, my voice ringing out with effortless authority. "For the past twenty years, Aurelia Systems has been built on the sweat, brilliance, and loyalty of its engineers and line workers. But over the last eighteen months, this company was driven to the brink of bankruptcy by reckless executive self-dealing and vanity."
A collective murmur rippled through the crowd.
Julian took an involuntary step toward the stage, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. "Audrey... what... what are you doing?" he croaked, his voice cracking.
I didn't acknowledge his interruption.
"As the new majority owner of Aurelia Systems, Northstar Holdings is taking immediate operational control," I continued, looking directly into the lenses of the corporate cameras broadcasting the event. "Effective immediately, all executive bonuses are suspended. The planned stock dilution is canceled. And every single employee pension fund is being fully guaranteed by Northstar's forty-billion-dollar sovereign asset reserve."
The ballroom erupted into deafening cheers and applause from the engineers and junior staff in the back rows.
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I raised a hand, waiting for the room to quiet down before delivering the final blow.
"Furthermore," I said, my voice turning to ice, "an emergency forensic audit of our procurement division has uncovered fourteen million dollars in fraudulent consulting payments routed to offshore shell corporations. The board of directors has voted unanimously to terminate Chief Strategy Officer Julian Vance and Communications Director Camilla Price, effective immediately. They are to be escorted from these premises by security."
