Chapter 5 - The Gathering Storm
While peace settled over Blackwood Manor, the financial capital of Manhattan was beginning to tremble.
By 2:00 PM, Thomas was seated at the head of a massive conference table in his private war room on the fifty-eighth floor of Blackwood Tower. Surrounding him were eight of the top corporate litigators in the United States, two former federal prosecutors, and his chief forensic investigator, Vance.
"Give me the summary, Vance," Thomas commanded, staring at the digital monitors mounted on the wall.
Vance tapped a tablet, bringing up a complex web of financial transactions. "Arthur Blackwood has been busy over the last six years, sir. Thinking you were distracted by your personal search for Miss Evans, he initiated a sophisticated embezzlement scheme using three offshore shell corporations registered in Panama."
Vance highlighted a series of red nodes on the screen. "He has siphoned over one hundred and twenty million dollars from the Blackwood Pension Fund to cover his personal losses in shorted technology stocks. Furthermore, we managed to recover the deleted server logs from six years ago. We have the absolute proof: Arthur personally logged into the corporate HR portal using administrator credentials to fabricate the espionage records against Clara Evans’s father."
A heavy, suffocating silence fell over the room. The lawyers exchanged cautious glances; they knew that exposing this would not just ruin Arthur—it would trigger a massive SEC investigation that could freeze Blackwood Holdings' trading stock.
"Mr. Blackwood," spoke up Arthur Pendelton, the senior legal counsel. "If we present this evidence to the board, Arthur will be forced out, but the public fallout will be catastrophic. Stockholders will file class-action lawsuits. The board may attempt to remove you for oversight negligence."
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Thomas slowly stood up, leaning his palms on the glass table, looking around at the most powerful legal minds in the city.
"Let them file lawsuits," Thomas said, his voice ringing with cold, absolute authority. "My uncle used this company to terrorize my wife and child. He used our name to commit grand larceny and destroy innocent lives. I am not calling a board meeting to negotiate, Arthur. I am calling an emergency shareholder summit for tomorrow morning at nine o'clock. And I want the FBI waiting in the lobby."
