Chapter 7 - When the Waitress Corrects the Senior Partner
The silence that fell over the Grand Ballroom was unlike anything the Meridian Tower had ever experienced.
Thirty-two of the most powerful corporate titans in the Midwest sat frozen in their seats, their forks suspended in midair, their champagne glasses forgotten.
Arthur Sinclair’s cigar burned down toward his knuckles, untouched.
Margot’s smug grin had vanished, replaced by an expression of sheer, bewildered outrage.
“What... what did you just say?” Margot sputtered, her face flushing a deep, mottled red. “Who gave you permission to give an opinion? Father, tell security to throw this lunatic out!”
“Shut up, Margot,” Arthur Sinclair whispered.
His face had gone completely gray.
Arthur leaned forward, his hands trembling slightly as he stared across the marble table at the pregnant woman in the oversized black service jacket.
“Who the hell are you?” Arthur demanded, his voice cracking.
Dela did not flinch.
She stood with her shoulders squared, her chin high, the fluorescent and chandelier lights catching the cold fire in her dark eyes.
“My name is Delilah Hawthorne,” she said clearly.
The name dropped like a five-hundred-pound bomb in the center of the room.
Julian Sinclair’s scotch glass slipped from his fingers, smashing against the marble table and sending amber liquid and ice shards splashing across the white linen.
“Hawthorne?” Julian choked out, his face draining of all color. “That’s... that’s impossible. Elias Hawthorne didn't have—”
“Elias Hawthorne had a wife,” Dela interrupted, her voice cutting Julian off like a razor. “And he had an auditor’s notebook containing eleven months of fraudulent shipping logs detailing forty-two million dollars of stolen industrial machinery moved through Dock 42 under the Sinclair Logistics seal.”
“This is slander!” Arthur Sinclair roared, slamming his palms onto the table and struggling to his feet. “Security! Get this woman out of my sight immediately!”
Two armed private security guards stationed near the ballroom doors took a step forward.
“Step back,” Augustine Vandermir said.
He didn't shout. He didn't rise from his seat.
He simply spoke two words.
The two security guards stopped in their tracks as if they had hit an invisible brick wall. They looked at Gus, saw the lethal stillness in his posture, and immediately took two steps backward, keeping their hands away from their holsters.
“Augustine!” Margot screamed, turning on him in a frenzy of panic and rage. “What is the meaning of this? She’s insane! She’s a disgruntled waitress making up wild conspiracy theories to extort my family!”
“She’s not making up anything, Margot,” Gus said quietly.
He reached inside his tuxedo jacket and pulled out a sleek black leather folder.
He laid it flat on the marble table, directly over the navy merger contract.
“Section 9.4 was designed to transfer the federal criminal liability of Elias Hawthorne’s murder and the Dock 42 smuggling ring directly onto my consortium’s balance sheet,” Gus explained, his gray eyes scanning the thirty-two investors sitting around the table.
“Your father thought I was blinded by the prospect of acquiring Sinclair Logistics. He thought I wouldn't notice the four-hundred-million-dollar structural trap buried on page twenty-four.”
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Gus turned his gaze toward Dela.
“Fortunately,” Gus said, “I hired better counsel.”
