Chapter 6 - The Default
The red text on the massive screen glowed like a furnace in the dimmed ballroom.
A loud, collective gasp exploded across the room as senior bank officers instantly recognized the legal significance of the document displayed on the board.
Default. Immediate liquidation. Total asset seizure.
“No...” Weston whimpered, his voice hollow, stripping away the last remaining shreds of his dignity. He grabbed the lapels of his tuxedo jacket as if he couldn't breathe. “No! You can’t do this! You can’t liquidate my company!”
Arthur, the Chase Manhattan vice president at Table One, stood up immediately, stepping two feet away from Weston as if he were holding a radioactive isotope.
“Arthur! Please!” Weston begged, turning to the banker with wild, bloodshot eyes. “You saw the prospectus! You know Chase can underwrite an emergency loan! Give me fifty million! Just fifty million to bridge the liquidity gap until I speak to Elowen in private!”
Arthur looked at Weston with absolute disdain, pulling his jacket closed.
“Are you insane, Weston?” Arthur snapped coldly, his voice echoing over the quiet gasps of the surrounding tables. “Chase underwrite a firm that’s being defaulted on by the Vane-Heritage Trust? We’re pulling our existing line of credit by midnight! Your commercial accounts are dead!”
“Arthur! No!”
Arthur didn't listen. He signaled to his associates, stood up, and walked away from Table One without looking back once.
On stage, I continued speaking into the microphone, my voice calm, precise, and completely unaffected by the chaos unfolding below.
“Under the terms of the original debt agreement,” I announced, “Prescott Holdings pledged eighty percent of its voting stock and all intellectual property as collateral. Due to material breaches of fiduciary duty, ethical misconduct, and personal embezzlement of corporate assets by CEO Weston Prescott, Meridian Capital has exercised its legal right to assume one hundred percent ownership of the firm effective immediately.”
I looked directly at Weston.
“Mr. Prescott,” I said softly into the microphone, “you are officially relieved of your duties as Chief Executive Officer. Security will escort you from the premises.”
“Elowen!” Weston shrieked, his voice breaking into a high-pitched, pathetic scream as he tried to charge the stage again. “Elowen, please! I’m sorry! I’m sorry for what I said! I was wrong! You are polished! You are brilliant! You are everything! Please don't take my life away!”
The four guards stepped forward simultaneously.
Two of them grabbed Weston’s arms, twisting them behind his back with practiced efficiency, while the other two blocked Claudia and Julianna as they tried to interfere.
“Let go of me!” Weston roared, thrashing wildly in the grip of the massive guards as they began dragging him backward across the hardwood floor toward the side exit. “Elowen! Look at me! I’m your husband! You can’t do this to your husband!”
The entire ballroom watched in stunned, absolute silence as the former high-flying CEO of Prescott Holdings was dragged through the crowd like a common criminal, his expensive shoes scraping uselessly against the polished floor, his desperate cries echoing off the gold-leaf ceilings until the side doors slammed shut behind him.
Claudia Prescott collapsed back into her chair, clutching her chest and sobbing hysterically into her linen napkin, while Julianna Vance grabbed her emerald gown and slipped out through the back exit to avoid the cameras that were pursuing her every move.
I stood behind the crystal podium, completely unbothered by the dramatic exit.
I took a slow sip of water from the glass Julian Sterling held out for me.
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“Now,” I said, turning my gaze back toward the remaining four hundred and ninety guests in the room, my voice warm, inviting, and completely serene. “Let us begin tonight’s presentation on our new green infrastructure fund.”
The ballroom broke into a thunderous, standing ovation that lasted for three full minutes.
