The boardroom smelled like expensive leather and old money. Same black marble table where Henri had interrogated me about Cléry, same grey Paris morning through the windows, same suffocating silence that made my ribs feel too tight. Except this time, I wasn't walking in alone.
Alan's hand rested at the small of my back as we entered at 7:58 AM—brief enough to miss, but I felt the heat through my black dress like a brand. We'd showered together in his penthouse an hour ago, moving with the efficiency of soldiers suiting up for war.
No words, just water and the taste of his mouth against mine in the steam, the weight of what we were about to do pressing down until breathing felt optional.
I'd watched him knot his tie in the mirror, his jaw set like concrete, and thought: This is what a man looks like when he's about to commit patricide. Then his eyes had met mine in the reflection, and underneath all that ice I'd seen it. Fear. Not for himself. For us.
The board members filed in like vultures circling a carcass, faces tight with that specific corporate dread that smells like blood and bonuses.
They could sense the kill coming, just didn't know whose throat would get slit. Anna Artois sat across from us with her father, both wearing identical masks of political neutrality—watching, calculating, waiting to pick the winning side like the mercenaries they were.
At 8:01 AM, Henri Delaunay entered. Rested, powerful, so utterly confident I wanted to throw something at his head. He looked like a man who'd slept soundly, who'd never once doubted his grip on power.
My stomach clenched as he took his seat at the head of the table—that same goddamn throne where he'd dissected my past like I was a specimen under glass.
"Thank you all for coming on such short notice." His voice was dry paper crackling, that cultured rasp that probably sounded distinguished to people who didn't know what monsters sounded like. "It has come to my attention that my grandson, Alan Delaunay, is no longer fit to serve as CEO."
The room sucked in a collective breath. I felt the shift in air pressure, that electric charge of scandal about to detonate. Alan's hand found mine under the table where no one could see, our fingers lacing together like a lifeline. His palm was steady, controlled. Mine was slick with sweat and terror.
"He has become emotionally compromised," Henri continued, his gaze sweeping the room with surgical precision.
Each word landed like a carefully placed knife. "He has allowed a... distraction..." His eyes flicked to me for one poisonous second, and I felt the weight of his contempt like a physical slap.
"...to cloud his judgment, threatening our merger with the Artois family and the very stability of Veridian. He has become a liability. I am therefore calling an immediate vote of no confidence to have him removed from the board and his position."
Fuck. Brilliant, brutal move. He was striking first, reframing the entire narrative before we could—painting Alan as the unstable one, the weak fool who'd let some assistant with a bastard child destroy him. Senator Artois looked visibly pleased, already calculating how this power vacuum would benefit his political ambitions.
Alan's thumb stroked once across my knuckles. The only sign he wasn't made of stone, that he was still human underneath all that ice.
"Before you vote." His voice cut through the room—calm, cold, absolute. He stood, and every eye locked on him. "You should all know why my grandfather is so eager to remove me."
He pressed a button on the console. The massive screen lit up, flooding with data. LUXEMBOURG_LEDGER_01 in stark white letters.
"What is this nonsense?" Henri snapped, but I saw it—the flicker of panic in his eyes.
"This," Alan said, his voice resonating with controlled fury, "is a record of every euro you have stolen from this company for the past ten years."
Dead silence. The kind where you can hear your own heartbeat pounding.
"It's a ledger, grandfather." Alan clicked to the next file. ARTOIS_PAYMENTS_FINAL filled the screen. "Shell corporations. Bribes. Millions siphoned from the 'Iris Project' budget to pay off politicians. Including, I'm afraid..." He paused. "Senator Artois himself, to ensure this 'merger' went through."
Every head swiveled to the Senator. He went pale, his politician's tan turning the color of spoiled milk. Anna's expression didn't change—killer poker face—but her fingers tightened on her pen hard enough I heard it crack.
"You're lying!" Henri roared, slamming his fist on the table hard enough to make water glasses jump. "These files are fabricated!"
"Are they?" Alan's voice dropped dangerously soft. "They were decrypted with a single passphrase, grandfather. Isolde. Your wife's name. My grandmother. The woman whose 'tainted' gene you've been obsessed with eradicating for thirty years."
The blood drained from Henri's face. He knew. We all knew. The game was over.
"You used this company as your personal piggy bank," Alan continued, each word precise. "You used my daughter—your great-granddaughter—as a lab rat. You blackmailed your own family. You are not a patriarch, grandfather." He paused. "You are a thief."
Henri's gaze darted around the room like a trapped animal. "Anna! Senator! He's destroying us! Stop him!"
This was it. The moment everything hinged on. Anna had been silent through the entire exchange, her face an impenetrable mask of aristocratic composure. She looked at the ledgers glowing on the screen, at her father's panic barely hidden behind his politician's smile, at Henri's empire crumbling in real-time like a sandcastle hit by a wave. Then she looked at Alan.
And I saw it shift in her eyes. Not anger, not betrayal. Respect. Cold, calculating, predatory respect for a man who'd just played the game better than anyone at this table, who'd weaponized Henri's own arrogance against him.
He had won. She knew it. We all knew it.
"Grandfather," Alan said, his voice carrying that final note of execution. "I am calling a new vote. An emergency vote to remove you from the board, permanently, citing financial crimes and medical malfeasance."
The votes were cast. One by one, hands raised—some reluctant, some eager, all of them sensing the power shift. Senator Artois, desperate to save himself, voted to oust Henri. Anna followed, her "Aye" ringing clear.
Henri Delaunay was ruined. He stared at Alan, his face purple with rage, his hands shaking on the polished marble. "You did this," he hissed, his voice trembling with the kind of impotent fury that comes from losing absolutely everything. "You destroyed this family. For her." The way he said it—like I was a disease, a contamination that had infected his perfect bloodline.
Alan didn't flinch. He walked the length of that table with the deliberate calm of a king claiming his throne and stood beside my chair. His hand settled on its back—protective, possessive, deliberate enough that every person in that room saw it and understood exactly what it meant. He looked his grandfather dead in the eyes, and when he spoke, his voice was clear and final as a coffin closing.
"No," he said. "I'm starting one."
The words hit me square in the chest. My throat tightened, something hot and overwhelming rising behind my eyes, threatening to spill over. He wasn't just talking about Amélie, about protecting our daughter. He was talking about us. About the family we'd built in the smoking wreckage of Henri's empire, about choosing me over legacy and blood and everything the Delaunay name had ever meant.
Alan turned to the shell-shocked board, his hand still on my chair like a claim. "Henri Delaunay is removed, effective immediately. All 'Iris' medical protocols are now under my sole authority." He paused, letting the weight of that victory settle over the room. "This meeting is adjourned."