He called me seventeen times. I answered the last one.
“You are destroying your father’s company,” he roared through the phone.
“No,” I replied calmly. “I am isolating the fire you started.”
“We can negotiate, Naomi,” he pleaded, his voice cracking.
“You have forty-eight hours to pay,” I said before hanging up. “After that, we will initiate legal action.”
Gavin looked everywhere for money. Celina tried to buy jewelry on Fifth Avenue, but her card was declined in front of her friends. The contractors staged a protest outside the house in Highland Hills. The shareholders demanded an extraordinary general meeting.
Cornered, Gavin made the mistake we expected.
He forged a board resolution to sell two company properties and the family residence to a foreign company. He was unaware that the buyer was a company controlled by Daniel and under investigation by the federal authorities. He signed the document, ordered the advance payment to be sent to a personal account, and confirmed via text message that part of the money would be used to silence the accountant who was aware of the misappropriation of funds.
The entire operation was recorded.
Even so, Gavin announced that he would be ratified as president at the general assembly. He believed that the document with my signature guaranteed him sixty percent of the votes. He organized the event at a hotel in Greenfield, invited journalists, and promised to present a foreign fund that never existed.
I entered the hall accompanied by Daniel and two plainclothes police officers. Gavin was on stage in a white suit. Celina was in the front row, still wearing the pearls I had gifted her.
“Get her out!” she shouted, pointing at me. “That woman no longer belongs to this family.”
Daniel stepped forward and picked up a folder.
“Ms. Naomi Albright is here as director of Apex Fund, the majority creditor of Summit Enterprises, and as a complainant in a federal investigation for fraud, money laundering, and attempted homicide,” he announced.
The murmur in the crowd turned into absolute chaos.
I took the microphone.
“A month ago, Gavin Barrett took advantage of my father’s supposed death to force me to hand over my shares,” I said, looking at the cameras. “Then he evicted me from my own home, but the transfer he claims did not give him control over the strategic assets, and it only transferred to him an indebted company and the liabilities he himself created through shell companies.”
The giant screens behind me displayed duplicate invoices, transfers to accounts in Panama, messages with the accountant, and the video of the illegal sale of the land.
Gavin tried to rip the microphone from my hand.
“It is all false!” he screamed desperately. “I own the majority, and as long as Ross Albright is dead, no one can take this company from me.”
I smiled.
“You should repeat that last part more loudly,” I said.
The heavy doors to the hall opened.
My father entered, accompanied by agents from the federal office and three long-time board members of Summit Enterprises. The journalists jumped to their feet in shock. Celina let out a high-pitched scream, and her pearl necklace broke, scattering pearls on the floor.
Gavin backed up until he bumped into the wooden lectern.
“No,” he whispered, shaking his head. “I saw the car, and you were dead.”
“You saw what your ambition needed to see,” my father replied, walking down the aisle. “You tampered with my brakes, stole from the company, and mistreated my daughter because you thought there would be no witnesses, and while it was an excellent performance, Gavin, it is time to lower the curtain.”
Gavin fell to his knees on the stage.
“Mr. Albright, please forgive me,” he pleaded, tears streaming down his face. “I can return everything, and I am still your son-in-law.”
“You stopped being part of my family when you used my daughter’s trust to steal from her,” my father replied coldly.
