CHAPTER 4: The Glass Doors Open

The call connected without a ring anyone else could hear.
Grace did not speak first.
Her father had taught her that silence made guilty men hurry.
Grant hurried.
“This board will remove you from every internal file,” he snapped. “Your access ends tonight. Your name leaves this company before dawn.”
The glass doors behind him clicked.
Everyone turned.
Beyond the doors stood Arthur Monroe, silver-haired, black-suited, calm enough to make the room feel suddenly unprepared.
Two security officers waited behind him, not touching the doors until he stepped forward.
Arthur crossed the threshold as if he had owned the building long before anyone in it learned his name.
Grant’s face drained first.
Then the chairman’s.
Marissa closed her tablet too quickly.
Grace did not move.
Arthur looked at his daughter’s face, then at the red mark near her mouth.
For one second, his expression almost broke.
Then it became something colder.
“Step away from my daughter,” he said.
The boardroom obeyed before Grant did.
His shoes sounded against the marble with slow, deliberate finality.
Every step seemed to erase another version of Grant’s story before he could tell it.