Wait... I'm back. Before the morning I sign the merger papers

Victoria Vance let out a sharp, strangled gasp as three hundred pages of eighty-pound bond parchment separated down the stitched spine with a clean, violent crack.

I didn't stop there. I grabbed the two torn halves, aligned the edges, and ripped them across the middle, tossing the quartered wreckage onto the center of the petrified wenge table. White paper drifted across the dark wood like dirty snow, scattering over the silver pens, the porcelain saucers, and the leather portfolios.

"You're insane!" Julian shrieked, jumping out of his chair so violently that the heavy leather seat crashed backward against the glass window, rattling the triple-glazed pane. "You're clinically out of your mind, Mercer! You just destroyed a four-hundred-million-dollar transaction!"

"I didn't destroy a transaction, Julian," I said, rising smoothly from my chair.

I didn't rush. I buttoned the center button of my tailored Savile Row jacket, reached into my black leather portfolio, and pulled out a clean, un-stapled ten-page document bound in simple white linen cardstock.

I tossed it squarely onto the center of the table, right on top of the shredded merger agreement.

"What is that?" Arthur Sterling demanded, his voice trembling with a mixture of disbelief and rising, subterranean panic.

"That, Arthur," I said, looking down the length of the table with the absolute, unyielding authority of an executioner reading a royal warrant, "is the formal notice of an emergency meeting of the Board of Directors of Sterling & Cross Technologies, convened pursuant to Section 4.2 of our founding charter."

Julian let out a ragged, desperate bark of laughter, running a trembling hand through his styled hair. "A board meeting?! Are you deaf, Leo?! The board consists of three people: you, me, and Arthur! I control forty-eight percent of the common stock! Arthur controls the preferred shares! We have fifty-two percent of the voting power! You can't pass a motion to change the breakroom coffee without our consent!"

"You had forty-eight percent of the common stock at six o'clock this morning, Julian," I replied, my voice chillingly calm. "You don't have it anymore."

Julian froze. His hand stopped in his hair, his eyes darting between my face and the white linen document.

"What... what are you talking about?"

"Exhibit B of your original founder's equity agreement, Julian," I said, every word hitting the room like an iron spike driven into a coffin lid. "'The Bad-Faith Intellectual Property Forfeiture Covenant.' The clause our founding incubator insisted on ten years ago to prevent co-founders from secretly licensing core university patents to third parties."

I stepped around the table, stopping three feet from where Julian stood shivering against the glass.

"Under Section 12," I continued, "any founder who attempts to assign, encumber, or transfer core company patents to an un-ratified external entity—such as Aegis Horizon Ltd. in the Cayman Islands—without the unanimous written consent of all common stockholders triggers an immediate, non-curable breach of fiduciary duty."

I pointed a finger at the white document on the table.

"Which means, Julian, that the moment Victoria Vance uploaded Exhibit F to the Delaware secretary of state’s pre-clearing portal at midnight last night, your forty-eight percent common stock automatically reverted to the company treasury at zero compensation. Your shares have been canceled. Your board seat is vacated. And your voting rights are officially zero."

Julian’s knees buckled.

The golden boy of Midwestern tech didn't catch himself. His hips slammed into the edge of the conference table, knocking over a crystal decanter of scotch. The amber liquid poured across the wood, soaking into the shredded pages of his four-hundred-million-dollar heist.

"Victoria!" Julian screamed, his voice cracking into a shrill, hysterical squeal as he grabbed his cousin’s shoulder. "Tell him he’s lying! Tell him that covenant was superseded by the Series A restructuring!"

Victoria Vance didn't answer.

She was staring at her tablet screen, her face completely, sickeningly bloodless. Her hands were shaking so violently that the digital stylus tumbled from her grip, clattering uselessly against the floorboards.

"Victoria!" Arthur Sterling thundered, slamming his fist onto the table. "Is the covenant valid?!"

Victoria slowly lifted her head. Her eyes were hollow, dilated with pure, unadulterated legal horror.

"It... it was an irrevocable statutory rider, Arthur," Victoria whispered, her voice barely audible over the drumming rain. "It was filed directly with the Delaware Division of Corporations under the state’s Uniform Commercial Code protections. It couldn't be superseded by a board resolution without Leo's physical, notarized signature."