Hand over the company credit card, sweetheart, before you embarrass yourself any further. The

I didn’t raise my voice. I never do. I simply slid the leather folder across the polished glass until it stopped in front of Derek’s coffee cup. “Open it,” I said. He smirked at the room, expecting applause, and flipped the cover with theatrical boredom. The smirk died on the second page. Inside were eighteen months of wire transfers from our subsidiary accounts into a shell company registered in his wife’s maiden name. Forty-two of them. Two-point-three million dollars, routed through a fake consulting contract he’d signed the week after my father’s stroke. Behind those were the emails. The ones where he called the board “dinosaurs,” called me “the grieving little mascot,” and promised an outside buyer he’d have controlling shares by spring. I let him read in silence. I wanted him to feel every page the way I’d felt every whisper in every hallway since the funeral. Then I turned to the board. “At 6 a.m. this morning, the forensic auditors finalized their report. At 7, our legal team filed for emergency injunction. At 8, the bank froze the shell accounts.” I finally looked back at Derek, whose face had gone the color of wet paper. “And at 8:45, the board voted, unanimously, by written consent, to remove you as Chief Operating Officer for cause.” He started to stand. Security was already at the door, polite, patient, holding a cardboard box with his name on a printed label. “The credit card,” I said softly, holding out my palm. “Hand it over, sweetheart. Before you embarrass yourself any further.” He dropped it. It clattered once on the glass. My father’s nameplate didn’t move. I picked it up, walked to the head of the table, and finally, finally, sat down in his chair.