Chapter 11 - The Company Inside the Company
Sienna ordered a forensic audit of Vantage Capital.
Not the normal books.
Everything.
Subsidiaries.
Dormant entities.
Legacy accounts.
Archived board resolutions.
Within forty-eight hours, Kira found the hidden structure.
Vantage Capital had two classes of ownership.
Class A belonged to Sienna.
Class B appeared inactive.
Except it wasn't.
The Class B shares had been transferred repeatedly through trusts until the ownership trail disappeared behind Carter Development Trust.
Sienna stared at the screen.
"How much voting power?"
Kira hesitated.
"Under ordinary circumstances, none."
"And extraordinary circumstances?"
"Fifty-one percent."
Sienna understood.
"What qualifies?"
Kira read the clause.
"Material threat to protected assets associated with Project Meridian."
The Richardson foreclosure had triggered it.
Someone could now override Sienna.
Someone had wanted her to initiate the seizure.
The yacht humiliation had been bait.
Julian had helped create it.
But perhaps he hadn't understood why.
Sienna called an emergency board meeting.
Seven directors arrived.
David's chair remained empty.
Sienna explained the hidden shares.
Three directors looked shocked.
Two looked confused.
One began sweating.
Sienna noticed.
"Mr. Warren."
The director looked up.
"Yes?"
"Did you know?"
"No."
"Then why are you afraid?"
"I'm not."
Kira placed a document on the table.
"Your signature appears on three Class B resolutions."
Warren stood.
"I need counsel."
The conference room doors locked.
"You'll get counsel," Sienna said. "After you tell me who gave you those documents."
Warren's face collapsed.
"I never met him."
"Name."
"I don't have one."
"Then what do you have?"
Warren looked toward the windows.
"A telephone number."
Kira took it.
They traced the number.
It belonged to a nursing facility in Connecticut.
A private facility with only twelve residents.
One resident had arrived twenty-four years earlier under a false identity.
Sienna stared at the photograph attached to the record.
The man was older now.
Gray-haired.
Thin.
May you like
But she recognized his eyes.
Her father's eyes.
