Jane's POV
The warm glow of the candles reflected softly against the glass window, throwing long, amber shadows across the rose petals scattered on the polished floorboards. I was resting my head against Yuri's broad shoulder, my hand woven tightly into his.
The weight of the custom vine-shaped diamond ring on my finger felt like a beautiful, grounding promise. For the first time in two weeks, the air did not taste like fear or sterile hospital bleach.
It was just a quiet, peaceful moment between me and my fiancé. I closed my eyes, letting out a soft sigh, wishing the universe would just let the clock stop ticking right here.
I felt safe. I felt happy. But in our world, peace never lasts for very long.
Bzzzz.
The sudden, harsh vibration of my phone against the mahogany table broke the silence. I winced slightly, a tiny knot of anxiety immediately tightening in my stomach. I reached out and picked up the device, my eyes scanning the screen.
The name on the caller ID made me freeze instantly. Alex.
Alex was Jay's personal, highest-level executive assistant. He was a man of absolute discipline and clinical efficiency.
In the entire time he had worked under my sister, he had never once called my personal line unnecessarily. He knew the strict boundaries of our family, which meant if he was reaching out to me directly on a private evening, the sky was actively falling.
I slid the green button immediately, bringing the phone to my ear as my posture went completely rigid. "Speak, Alex," I commanded, my tone dropping all its softness in a fraction of a second.
"Ms. Jane," Alex's voice came through the line, tight, hurried, and lanced with an unfamiliar edge of pure stress. "I need you here at the JJM Corporation headquarters right now. We have a massive crisis."
"What happened?" I asked, my grip tightening on the phone until my knuckles turned stark white.
"The board of directors and the primary shareholders... somehow, the news of Ms. Jay's critical condition leaked out to the upper circle," Alex explained, his teeth clenching over the line. "They know she was hospitalized. They think she is incapacitated, and right now, they are holding an emergency meeting in the grand boardroom. They are planning a hostile corporate takeover to strip her of her CEO position tonight."
A blinding, white-hot fury instantly exploded behind my eyes, making the blood roar in my ears. How dare they. How dare those greedy, spineless vultures sit in their comfortable leather chairs and plot to steal the crown from a girl who was currently covered in bandages, fighting to heal.
Jay had bled for that company. She had sacrificed her youth, her peace, and her safety to build an empire that kept hundreds of people fed, and these cowards wanted to rip it away the second she lowered her guard.
"I am coming right now, Alex," I said, my voice dropping into an icy, lethal register that dripped with absolute venom. "Listen to me carefully: stall them. Call the official shareholder meeting to order, lock the boardroom doors from the inside, and don't let a single soul leave that room until I step through the entrance."
"Understood, Ms. Jane," Alex replied before the call clicked shut.
I ended the call and slowly lowered the phone, my mind already spinning with strategic calculations.
When I turned my head, I found Yuri staring directly at me, his dark eyes narrowed in a tense, highly alert expression. He had heard the shift in my tone. The quiet, gentle girl he had just proposed to had vanished, replaced by the cold shadow of a predator.
"What happened, koibito (sweetheart)?" Yuri asked, his deep voice laced with an anxious, protective edge as he reached out to touch my arm.
I forced a soft, perfectly smooth smile onto my lips, looking directly into his eyes. I couldn't let him follow me tonight. This wasn't an war fought with silenced pistols and tactical shotguns in a dark warehouse; this was a corporate execution, and it belonged strictly to the Jay's name. I needed him to stay back and keep the estate secure.
If Yuri came, he would bring the wrath of Section E, and that would make this look like a major dispute. I needed it to look like exactly what it was: a bloodline reclaiming her throne.
"Nothing, love," I said softly, my voice completely steady as I patted his hand. "Everything is perfectly fine. I just ordered a specific, high-end medical device for Jay's home recovery and the delivery company misplaced the tracking numbers. I just need to head down to the logistics office and handle the error personally. I will be back before you know it."
Inside my chest, my heart was hammering violently. I was praying to whatever god was listening: Please, let him believe me. Just this once, don't read my micro-expressions.
Yuri stared at me for a long, quiet three seconds, his intense gaze searching my face for any sign of a lie. Finally, his shoulders relaxed just a fraction, and he gave me a single, slow nod. "Okay. Take care, koibito. Call me the second you're done."
"I will," I whispered.
I turned away and walked out of the romantic room, exhaling a massive, trembling breath that I didn't even realize I had been holding in my lungs.
The second I stepped out of the restaurant doors into the cool night air, the gentle warmth completely evaporated from my spirit. I marched straight to my car, slammed my boot onto the accelerator, and sped through the neon-lit streets toward the towering glass skyscraper of the JJM Corporation.
The massive glass doors of the JJM headquarters didn't just open; they felt like they flew back under the sheer force of my arrival.
I stepped into the grand marble lobby, the sharp, rhythmic click... click... click of my high heels echoing against the high ceilings like the ticking of a countdown clock.
Security guards and late-night secretaries instantly froze in their tracks, their eyes widening in complete shock as I marched
past them without showing a single ID card.
Nobody dared to stand in my way. The air around me felt heavy, crackling with an invisible, suffocating aura of pure authority.
I took the private executive elevator straight to the top floor. When the silver doors slid open, Alex was already waiting for me in the corridor, his face pale but his expression hardening the moment he saw me walking down the hall.
"They're inside, Ms. Jane," Alex whispered, stepping into stride right beside me. "The primary partner, Mr. Henderson, is leading the vote. They are ten minutes away from signing the emergency paperwork to remove Ms. Jay from the register."
"They won't sign a single line," I replied coldly.
I reached the massive, double oak doors of the grand boardroom. I didn't bother knocking. I raised my hand and slammed the heavy doors open with a thunderous crash that echoed loudly across the entire executive floor.
The twenty older men sitting around the giant glass conference table instantly snapped their heads around, their arrogant expressions freezing into looks of pure annoyance and confusion.
The air in the room was thick with the scent of expensive cigars and expensive cologne, but the moment I stepped over the threshold, a freezing chill seemed to settle over the entire space.
"What is the meaning of this interruption?!" a loud, booming voice shouted from the head of the table. It was Mr. Henderson, a wealthy, arrogant older shareholder with a smug look on his face. He slammed his gold pen down onto the glass. "This is a private, high-level board meeting! Security, remove this girl immediately!"
I didn't move an inch. I stood perfectly straight at the entrance, my arms crossed over the front of my crimson silk dress, the vine-shaped diamond ring catching the harsh boardroom lights.
A slow, mocking smirk formed on my lips as I looked down the length of the long table, treating their collective wealth like absolute dirt.
"Did you honestly believe you could just walk into this palace of ghosts and usurp my sister's position?" My shadow loomed overhead, eyes burning with a terrifying, protective fury. "This palace belongs to her. And as her sister, I will protect it with my absolute life."
A cold, mocking laugh answered from the opposing side, dripping with venomous threats. Mr. Henderson leaned back, clicking his pen dismissively. "You talk big for someone standing on a crumbling foundation. You won't stop what's coming."
"You really think I will fall for your pathetic bluff?" A dangerous step forward closed the distance, the air turning to ice. "You seem to have forgotten exactly who I am, Mariano. If you have truly lost your memory, allow me to remind you—I possess more than enough power to make you regret ever drawing breath." 🔱👁️🗨️⛓️
A few of the younger partners at the bottom of the table exchanged nervous looks, their postures shifting as they felt the sudden pressure in the air. But Henderson just let out a loud, mocking laugh, leaning back in his leather chair with a look of pure, condescending amusement.
"Ah, I see. You're Jay's older sister, aren't you?" Henderson sneered, his eyes roaming over me with complete dismissal. "Listen to me, little girl. This is the corporate world. This isn't a playground for children. Your sister is currently incapacitated in a hospital bed, useless to this company. We are businessmen, and we don't let our multi-million dollar assets be governed by emotional little girls. You have no stock here, you have no authority, and you have absolutely no power. Go back to your mansion and play with your makeup."
Another older board member chimed in, chuckling softly into his hand. "Exactly. The industry belongs to men who understand numbers, not emotional girls who throw tantrums when their family gets hurt. Leave the documents to us before you ruin whatever value this company has left."
They thought I was weak because I was a woman. They thought I was just a soft shadow following Jay's fierce light. They forgot that the same blood that made Jay a monster in the co-operate world ran straight through my veins.
The insults were meant to diminish me, to make me shrink back into the shadows. But as their words echoed through the room, the lingering gentleness inside my soul didn't just fade—it died entirely.
A massive, towering wall of pure, unadulterated rage exploded outward from my frame, filling every single corner of the executive boardroom until the air felt thick, heavy, and completely suffocating.
I took three slow, deliberate steps forward, the sharp click of my heels sounding like a death sentence against the marble border of the floor. I leaned down, slamming both of my hands onto the glass surface of the table right in front of the nearest shareholder.
The glass rattled loudly under the impact, and the man physically recoiled backward into his seat, his face going instantly pale.
"You think because I carry a gentle face, I don't know how to butcher an enemy?" I said, my voice dropping into a register so dark, cold, and dead it made the hairs on their arms stand flat up.
I locked my icy eyes onto Henderson, my gaze filled with a lethal promise that left no room for doubt. "You sit here in your expensive suits, counting the dollars that my sister earned while executing tactical takeovers in the mud. You talk about numbers? Let's talk about the number of seconds it will take for me to ruin every single one of your personal bank accounts if you don't shut your pathetic mouths."
I leaned closer to Henderson, the pressure of my aura making him sweat. "Jay built this company with her bare hands, her sweat, and her blood. She didn't build it so a bunch of old, fading cowards could partition it like a piece of meat while she rests. You think she is weak because she is injured? Jay in a coma has more power, more brain, and more worth than all of you combined in this room."
The entire boardroom fell into a state of absolute, dead silence. The smug smirks completely vanished from their faces, replaced by looks of pure, wide-eyed terror.
The sheer, terrifying aura of authority radiating from me was heavy enough to make their hands tremble against their paperwork.
"You forget who I am," I whispered, leaning forward as a cold, merciless smile spread across my face. "You see a girl, but you completely forget the bloodline that runs through my veins. I am Ms. Jean Mariano Sister if you know .And this empire belongs strictly to our name."
I reached out, snatched the emergency takeover documents right out from under Henderson's scrambling hands, and ripped the thick stack of papers completely in half, tossing the white fragments carelessly into the air like confetti.
"If a single one of you even breathes the word 'replacement' again... I will not just strip you of your shares. I will ensure to dismantles your entire legacy outside these walls. Jay remains the CEO of JJM Corporation, and her position is absolutely safeguarded. Now... clear out of my building before I decide to make this corporate execution literal."
Within thirty seconds, the entire boardroom emptied out in a frantic, terrified rush. Chairs scraped wildly against the floor as the wealthy shareholders scrambled over each other to reach the double doors, their faces white with fear, trembling as they fled past me.
I stood alone at the head of the empty table, the crown securely protected, showing the world exactly what happens when you try to cross the family.
Alex stepped into the room, a look of pure respect and awe on his face. "That was... incredible, Ms. Jane. Jay would be proud."
I looked at the torn papers on the floor, the cold mask slowly sliding away, leaving me exhausted but resolute. "Make sure the legal team locks this down, Alex. If they try anything again, tell me. I won't hesitate to finish what I started tonight."
"Understood, Ms. Jane," he said with a deep bow.
I turned on my heel and walked out of the corporate tower. My sister was safe, her throne was secure, and the vultures knew exactly who held the keys to the kingdom.