Chapter 4 - THE WRATH OF THE GOLDEN BOY
The morning sun filtered brightly through the penthouse windows, but the warmth did nothing to melt the ice settling in my stomach as I stared at my phone. I had eighty-four missed calls, forty-two text messages, and seven voicemails. Almost all of them were from Nicholas.
I sat at the marble kitchen island, wrapped in one of Emmett’s plush robes, a cup of exquisite espresso warming my hands. Emmett had left early for a board meeting, leaving a handwritten note telling me to make myself at home. It was the most luxurious morning of my life, starkly contrasted by the toxic waste dump that was my phone's notification screen.
Reluctantly, I pressed play on the first voicemail.
"Jenna, you little bitch." Nicholas’s voice hissed through the speaker, slurred and venomous. "You ruined my life. Do you hear me? You ruined everything! The Vanguard investors pulled out this morning. They said if Emmett Stewart doesn't respect me, they can't trust my leadership. You set this up. You jealous, pathetic loser. You better call me back, or I swear to God, I will destroy whatever fake little relationship you have with Stewart."
I deleted it, feeling a sickening mix of pity and rage. Nicholas had built his entire career on a house of cards, relying on name-dropping, inflated metrics, and aggressive networking. Emmett hadn't destroyed him; Emmett had merely turned on the lights, revealing the emptiness of the room.
Around noon, my phone rang again. This time, it was the front desk of my own apartment building.
"Miss Jenna? I'm sorry to bother you," the doorman said nervously. "But your brother is here. He's making a massive scene in the lobby, demanding we let him up. He says it’s an emergency."
"Don't let him up, Carlos. I'm not even there," I said, my heart rate spiking. "Call the police if he doesn't leave."
But the call ended before Carlos could respond. Ten minutes later, my phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number. It was a photo. A photo of my laptop, sitting on my worn-out living room table, surrounded by my confidential client files. Nicholas had somehow bypassed the doorman and broken into my apartment.
The text beneath the photo read: Did you know it’s a federal crime to break a corporate NDA? I have all your hard drives. I have the client lists. Unless you get Emmett to publicly apologize to me and endorse my merger by tomorrow, I’m leaking everything to the press. You’ll be sued into oblivion. You’ll both go to prison.
Panic, cold and sharp, seized my chest. My client list was the holy grail of corporate secrets. If Nicholas leaked that I had ghostwritten the speeches, memoirs, and crisis management statements for the most powerful CEOs in the country, the stock market would riot. It would ruin dozens of companies. It would ruin Emmett.
I didn't panic. I didn't cry. For the first time in my life, the quiet, subservient Jenna died, replaced by a cold, calculating strategist. I had spent years writing crisis management protocols for billionaires. It was time I wrote my own.
I quickly dressed in the sleek, tailored suit I had asked Emmett's assistant to procure for me that morning. I grabbed the leather-bound contract Emmett had given me the night before, signed my name boldly on the dotted line, and headed straight for the elevator.
When I arrived at the Stewart Global headquarters, the security team had already been briefed to let me up to the executive floor. I stormed into Emmett’s glass-walled office, interrupting a meeting with his CFO.
Emmett took one look at my face and immediately dismissed the executive. "What happened?" he asked, rushing over to me.
I slammed my phone onto his desk, showing him the extortion text. "My brother broke into my apartment. He has my physical hard drives. The ones with the unencrypted drafts of every speech I've ever written. He’s threatening to release them unless you endorse his failing company."
Emmett’s eyes darkened, a terrifying storm brewing in his irises. "He just made the biggest mistake of his miserable life." He reached for his phone. "I'll have my security team handle him. We'll get the police involved. Extortion is a felony."
"No," I said sharply, surprising myself with the authority in my voice. "If we call the police, it becomes public record. The mere rumor of a client list leak will cause panic. We can't fight this with brute force. We have to outmaneuver him."
Emmett paused, his phone hovering in the air. He looked at me, a slow, admiring smirk spreading across his face. "You have a plan."
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"I always have a plan," I replied, pulling my signed VP contract out of my bag and sliding it across his desk. "But first, make it official. If I'm going to war with my brother, I need the full weight of Stewart Global behind me."
Emmett didn't hesitate. He signed the countersignature, his eyes locking onto mine with fierce pride. "Welcome aboard, Madam Vice President. Now, how do we destroy him?"
