Chapter 4 - The Poisoned Gift and the Family Dinner
The emergency board meeting lasted three grueling hours, but for Shiaoza and Jang Chin Tong, it was an execution conducted in broad daylight.
Every slide projected onto the massive LED screen in Boardroom 1 was an undeniable nail in their professional coffins. Bank wire transfers originating from our domestic logistics reserves routed through shell entities in the Cayman Islands. Lease agreements for a twelve-thousand-square-foot waterfront villa registered under Jang’s mother’s name. Invoices for haute couture fashion houses, luxury sports cars, and private yacht charters disguised as "client entertainment expenses."
By the time Arthur Sterling and the board members signed the formal asset freeze directives, Shiaoza was slumped in an auxiliary chair at the far corner of the room, looking like a broken man.
Jang had already been escorted from the floor by building security, her weeping protests echoing down the elevator shaft as she was forced to leave behind her company credit cards, her phone, and the keys to the corporate Mercedes she had been illegally driving.
As the board members filed out of the room offering me their formal congratulations and support, Shiaoza remained in his chair, his hands buried in his disheveled hair.
“Elena...” he croaked, looking up through bloodshot eyes. “You planned this. You knew about the audits weeks ago. You let me walk into this trap.”
I closed my laptop with a quiet, decisive click.
“I didn't set a trap, Shiaoza,” I said calmly, looking down at him from the head of the table. “You built the gallows with your own greed. I merely pulled the lever.”
“Ten years,” he whispered, his voice cracking with pathetic desperation. “Ten years of marriage, Elena! We built this together! How could you humiliate me in front of the board? How could you destroy my reputation in front of Arthur Sterling?”
I let out a soft, humorless laugh as I walked toward him.
“You care about your reputation?” I pulled the limited-edition white Patek Philippe watch from my pocket and held it dangling by its platinum bracelet right in front of his nose. “You took half a million dollars of my personal money—money meant to honor your mother’s milestone birthday—and you put it on the wrist of a twenty-four-year-old girl who ordered me to take the freight stairs in my own building.”
Shiaoza flinched, looking away from the gleaming diamonds. “I was going to replace it! I was going to buy another watch for Mother before the dinner tonight! I just... Tong Tong begged me for it. She saw it on my desk and cried, saying she had never owned anything truly beautiful in her life. I lost my head, Elena! It was just a momentary lapse of judgment!”
“A momentary lapse of judgment that lasted two years and cost forty-eight million dollars?” I asked coldly.
Before he could invent another pathetic lie, Shiaoza’s personal phone vibrated violently against the conference table.
The caller ID flashed brightly on the screen: Mother.
Shiaoza stared at the phone as if it were a venomous snake. His mother, Madame Beatrice Shiao, was an intensely proud, status-obsessed matriarch who had spent the last decade reminding everyone in high society that her son was the sole genius behind the Vane-Shiao corporate empire.
Tonight was her seventieth birthday jubilee at the Grand Imperial Hotel, an exclusive, private banquet where two hundred of the city’s elite had been invited to celebrate her milestone.
The phone continued to ring relentlessly.
“Answer it,” I commanded softly, leaning against the edge of the table.
Shiaoza swallowed hard, reached out with a trembling hand, and slid the green icon across the screen, putting the call on speakerphone.
“Shiaoza!” Beatrice’s sharp, demanding voice instantly filled the empty boardroom. “Where are you? Why aren't you at the hotel overseeing the floral arrangements? The banquet starts in four hours!”
“Mother... I’m at the office. We had an unexpected... executive meeting,” Shiaoza stammered, casting a terrified glance at me.
“Well, wrap it up immediately!” Beatrice snapped dismissively. “More importantly, did that useless wife of yours actually manage to secure the white Patek Philippe? Lady Harrington and Duchess DuPont are attending tonight, and I have already told them that my daughter-in-law was instructed to bring me the most exclusive timepiece in the world. If Elena arrives empty-handed from Europe, I will be utterly humiliated!”
Shiaoza closed his eyes in pure agony. “Mother, please, Elena is—”
“I don't care where she is!” Beatrice cut him off sharply. “She spends all her time gallivanting around Europe pretending to be an important businesswoman while you do all the real work here in the city. The least she can do is deliver the gift on time. Make sure she dresses appropriately for once. I don't want her embarrassing our family in those cheap, plain clothes she insists on wearing.”
I reached down, tapped the microphone icon on the phone, and spoke with absolute, crystal-clear poise.
“Good afternoon, Mother-in-law.”
A sudden, suffocating silence gripped the line.
“E-Elena?” Beatrice’s tone shifted slightly, though her inherent arrogance remained firmly intact. “You’re back from Zurich? Well, it’s about time. Did you bring the watch?”
“I have the watch right here in my hand,” I replied smoothly, looking directly into Shiaoza’s terrified eyes. “It is in pristine condition. Every diamond is perfectly in place.”
Beatrice let out a triumphant, self-satisfied sigh over the speaker. “Good. At least you managed to complete one simple task correctly. Make sure you and Shiaoza arrive by 6:00 PM sharp. The society photographers will be at the grand entrance, and I want the presentation captured for the morning society columns.”
“Do not worry, Mother-in-law,” I said, a chilling smile touching my lips. “Shiaoza and I will be there on time. And I promise you, the presentation will be an event this city will never forget.”
I ended the call before Beatrice could respond.
Shiaoza looked up at me, his face completely drained of color, his chest heaving with sheer dread.
“Elena... what are you going to do at the banquet?” he begged, grabbing the hem of my slacks with both hands. “Please, I’m begging you. Humiliate me here in private. Take the company. Take the voting shares. But don't destroy my family in front of the entire city. My mother’s heart can't take it!”
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I pulled my leg back, stepping out of his pathetic grasp, and looked down at him with pure, unadulterated contempt.
“Your mother’s heart had no trouble demanding half-million-dollar tributes while treating me like an unpaid servant for ten years,” I said coldly. “Go home, Shiaoza. Put on your finest tuxedo. We have a birthday party to attend.”
