Chapter 2 - The Crumbling Kingdom
While I was comforting my daughter,
the Kincaid empire was already beginning to bleed out.
Wesley Trent,
my COO at Holloway Components Group,
had followed my instructions with surgical precision.
By Friday afternoon,
Kincaid Manufacturing had received forty-seven formal notices of contract termination.
The supply chain that fed their assembly lines had been severed in a single stroke.
Brennan Kincaid spent the entire day in his office,
shouting into his phone and throwing crystal paperweights at the wall.
He didn't know that the 'anonymous' supplier who had just ruined him was sitting across the table from his wife.
Darlene Kincaid,
ever the narcissist,
wasn't worried about the business;
she was worried about her social standing.
She spent the afternoon at the country club,
telling her friends that Camille was "difficult" and "low-class,"
painting the narrative of a generous family burdened by a poor daughter-in-law.
She didn't know that the bank had already flagged Blue Lantern Logistics for investigation.
She didn't know that the twelve million dollars her son had borrowed was already being tracked by my legal team.
I spent that night in my "workshop,"
which was actually a high-tech facility where we designed aerospace fittings.
I looked at the old cargo van we still kept in the bay,
a reminder of where Franklin and I had started.
We had built this world with honesty and hard work.
The Kincaids were trying to maintain theirs with theft and humiliation.
"Wesley,"
I said,
calling my COO one last time before Sunday.
"I want you to attend the Kincaid lunch."
"Arrive at exactly 1:30 p.m."
"And Wesley?"
"Dress like you're about to buy a soul."
"Because that's exactly what we're going to do."
I went back to my modest house and prepared my outfit for the lunch.
No diamonds.
No designer labels.
Just the same simple,
navy blue dress I had worn to Camille’s wedding.
I wanted them to feel superior.
I wanted them to be so confident in their arrogance that they wouldn't see the trap until it snapped shut.
Brennan called Camille that night,
his voice dripping with fake affection.
"Make sure your mother brings that security drive tomorrow,
babe."
"We really need to clear up these little financial hurdles."
Camille looked at me as she hung up the phone.
"He thinks he's won,
Mom."
"He thinks he’s about to get away with it."
I smiled,
a cold,
predatory expression that I usually reserved for hostile takeovers.
"Let him think that for a few more hours."
May you like
"The higher he climbs on his mountain of lies,"
"the more bones he’ll break when he falls."
