The boardroom on the 90th floor of the Sterling Building was a fortress of mahogany and glass. It was designed to make people feel small. The table was a forty-foot slab of rare black marble, polished to a mirror finish, reflecting the faces of twelve men and women who collectively controlled more wealth than most sovereign nations.
Today, those faces were masks of barely concealed outrage.
"This is an absurdity," Lord Sterling-Hamilton barked, slamming a gold-plated pen onto the marble. He was Reid's distant cousin, a man who smelled of mothballs and hereditary entitlement. "The Vane merger was the backbone of our Q3 projections. To have it dismantled by... by a litigation anomaly from Queens is a breach of fiduciary duty!"
"It wasn't an anomaly, Hamilton," a cold, calm voice drawled from the head of the table.
