Chapter 3

As the private jet began its descent into the familiar skyline of the city she had helped build, Eleanor tried Sarah' s phone one more time. It went straight to voicemail. The prerecorded message, Sarah' s bright, optimistic voice, was a painful echo of a life that now seemed a distant memory.

The anxiety tightened its grip. Sarah wasn' t just unreachable; she was missing. After being thrown out of that auditorium, where would she have gone? Who would have taken her in? The thought that she was alone, hurt, and terrified on the streets was unbearable.

"Mr. Henderson, have you had any luck with internal contacts?" Eleanor asked, her gaze fixed on the city lights growing larger below.

"I have, Mrs. Vance, and the news is not good," he replied, his tone grave. "Mark initiated a full communications lockdown an hour before the press conference. He used a 'security threat' as a pretext. All executive-level access codes were changed. Key personnel loyal to you and Sarah have been placed on administrative leave or escorted from the building. He' s purged the board of your allies, replacing them with his own people."

Eleanor listened, a cold dread seeping into her. This wasn' t a spur-of-the-moment power grab. This was a meticulously planned coup, executed with military precision. Mark had been plotting this for months, maybe years, right under her nose. While she was blissfully planning her retirement, he was sharpening his knives.

The pieces clicked into place with horrifying clarity. The global trip she had been so excited for-he had encouraged it, insisted on it. It wasn't to give her a break; it was to get her out of the way. The legal documents she' d signed, giving him and Sarah increasing operational control, had been the weapons he needed. He hadn' t just betrayed her daughter; he was trying to steal her entire life' s work.

"That bastard," she breathed, the words tasting like ash.

"There' s more, ma' am," Mr. Henderson continued, swiping through his tablet. "He' s already dissolved the Vance Family Foundation, our primary philanthropic wing. He' s rerouting all capital into a new shell corporation registered in the Cayman Islands. The name of the corporation is 'Miller-Johnson Global.' "

Eleanor felt a surge of white-hot anger. The foundation was Sarah' s passion project, a legacy of giving back that was more important to her than any stock option. Mark was not just seizing power; he was erasing them. He was systematically dismantling every pillar of the Vance name, salting the earth so nothing of theirs could ever grow again.

"Mr. Henderson," Eleanor said, her voice dropping to a lethal calm. "Get our legal team on the line. I want you to tell them to file an emergency injunction to freeze every single Vance Tech asset. Every account, every transaction, every contract. Nothing moves. Nothing gets signed. Nothing gets transferred. Use my authority as majority shareholder and founder. Shut it down. All of it. Now."

"He will claim you are retired, that you no longer have that authority," Mr. Henderson cautioned.

"My retirement was never formally filed with the SEC. It was an announcement of intent, not a legal abdication. I am still the CEO on record. Let him fight it in court. By the time he untangles the legal knots, I' ll have him in a cage."

"Right away, Mrs. Vance."

As Henderson made the calls, Eleanor' s phone buzzed with more news alerts. Mark was on a roll, giving interviews to every major outlet. One headline read: "Mark Johnson Ushers in a New Era for Vance Tech, Vowing to Move Past 'Outdated Traditions.' "

Another quoted him directly: "For too long, this company has been a family vanity project. Under my leadership, with my daughter Lily at my side, we will be driven by pure innovation and ruthless efficiency, not sentimentality."

He was spitting on her legacy. He was calling her life' s work a 'vanity project' .

The jet' s wheels touched down on the tarmac with a jolt.

Eleanor was already on her feet, grabbing her coat. The time for long-distance commands was over.

It was time for a personal visit.