Chapter 3 - THE LOCKOUT
Monday morning, the rain in Boston fell in heavy, gray sheets, mirroring the cold reality settling over the Ashford empire.
I sat at the head of the glass conference table in my own modest office. At exactly 8:05 AM, the elevator chimed. Richard Ashford didn't just walk into my office; he stormed it, followed by two frantic corporate lawyers.
"Turn them back on!" Richard slammed a leather briefcase onto my table. "Our manufacturing lines in three states are completely halted. You’re costing me a million dollars an hour, Bennett!"
I took a slow sip of my black coffee. "I’m not costing you anything, Richard. Apex Holdings locked down the servers due to a breach of contract regarding unpaid licensing fees."
"Apex Holdings?" Richard sneered, his face flushed. "That ghost company has been bleeding us for six months! What do they have to do with you?"
I slid a single piece of paper across the glass table. It was a shredded internal memo I had painstakingly reconstructed over the weekend.
Richard looked at it, and the color drained from his face.
It was proof that Ashford Industries had been inflating their quarterly earnings to secure a massive federal grant, while systematically hiding their debt in offshore shell companies. But more importantly, it showed the true ownership of Apex Holdings.
"I am Apex Holdings, Richard."
The silence in the room was absolute. The two lawyers looked at each other, suddenly realizing they were on a sinking ship.
"You..." Richard choked out. "You married my daughter just to infiltrate my company?"
"I loved Fiona," I said, the betrayal still a fresh ache in my chest. "I bought Apex Holdings because I realized your outdated tech was vulnerable, and I wanted to protect the family I was marrying into. But when I audited the code, I found your cooked books."
Richard sank into a chair, his arrogant posture dissolving. He looked like an old, frightened man. But the Ashfords never surrendered gracefully; they always had venom left in their fangs.
He looked up, a cruel, desperate smile twisting his lips.
"You think you're so smart, defending that pathetic father of yours," Richard whispered. "You think Thomas is just a poor, noble mechanic? Ask him about the prototype from 1994. Ask him why my wife hates him so much."
My brow furrowed. "What are you talking about?"
Richard reached into his briefcase and pulled out a faded, yellowed photograph. He tossed it onto the glass.
May you like
It was my father, thirty years younger, standing in a laboratory next to Victoria Ashford. And they were holding hands.
"Your father didn't just fix elevators, Ethan," Richard said, his voice dripping with malice. "He built the foundation of my company. And he let me steal it."
