Chapter 6 - The Vote Nobody Saw
Victor's accusation threatened the one thing I needed most: confidence that Aurelia's rescue was legitimate.
I asked Elena to arrange a separate review of every proposed director's financial ties.
No one, including my own nominees, would be exempt.
Julian learned of the review within hours and portrayed it as proof we had lost control.
He demanded that the board reverse the restrictions on his spending authority.
The board refused.
He then invoked an obscure clause allowing a special shareholder meeting if enough owners signed a petition.
He could not remove Northstar's majority stake.
He could, however, force a public confrontation and seek votes on director appointments and procedural challenges.
We spent two days checking the petition's signatures.
One belonged to a retired employee who had died the previous winter.
Another matched a shareholder whose shares had been sold months earlier.
Elena preserved the documents and notified the appropriate authorities rather than accusing Julian without a complete record.
The pressure was already affecting customers.
A major hospital group paused renewal of an Aurelia software contract because it feared service disruption.
I met its leadership personally and offered independent performance reporting.
We won thirty days to prove continuity.
That night Camilla asked to meet me in the hotel café where everything had begun.
She arrived wearing a plain gray coat, no jewelry, and the expression of someone who hadn't slept in days.
“I didn't know about the false signatures,” she said.
“But you knew about the vendors.”
“I knew Serena was consulting,” she admitted.
“Julian told me he was building a separate venture to protect himself if Aurelia failed.”
“Did he tell you he was paying for that protection with Aurelia's money?”
She stared at the table.
Her silence answered for her.
Then she said Julian had promised to marry her after the promotion.
I felt an old pain rise and settle again.
His betrayal was no longer a discovery.
It was a fact I had to stop paying emotional interest on.
Camilla took a folded sheet from her pocket.
It listed meetings with a lender, a public-relations consultant, and an unknown person identified only as M.
“Julian said M could change the board,” she whispered.
“Who's M?”
“I thought it was Malcolm.”
She looked up.
“Now I'm not sure.”
The café television showed a breaking business-news banner.
Aurelia's largest unsecured creditor had filed suit demanding immediate repayment.
I checked my phone for Elena's message.
Instead I found an alert from our bank.
May you like
Northstar's pledged collateral account had been challenged by someone claiming authority under my mother's estate.
