“Security,” Blaine bellowed again, finally finding his voice as he stormed into the room after them. “Get them out. This is private property. This is trespassing.”

The head of security, a broad-shouldered man named Graves, who had worked for the Thornwall family for 15 years, stepped forward. He looked at Blaine. Then he looked at Miralin.

“Actually, Mr. Thornwall,” Graves said, his voice rumbling like a subterranean train, “technically, under the bylaws of the holding company you liquidated this afternoon, the majority shareholder has the right to access all physical assets. Mrs. Thornwall—apologies—Ms. Chimera is the majority shareholder.”

Graves stepped aside, folding his hands behind his back.

Blaine looked like he had been slapped with a wet trout. “Graves, you’re fired. You’re all fired.”

“You can’t fire him, Blaine,” Miralin said, stopping in the center of the room. She did not shout. She did not need to. The acoustics of the room carried her calm, devastating contralto to the rafters. “You don’t have the quorum.”

Ivelisse pushed past Blaine, her red dress rustling aggressively. She marched up to Miralin, her eyes narrowing.

“You think this is a game? You think you can just walk in here in a borrowed dress and a borrowed billionaire and scare us? You’re a librarian, Miralin. You organize bookshelves. You don’t run empires.”

Miralin turned her head slowly, regarding Ivelisse with the mild curiosity one might show a particularly noisy insect.

“I didn’t organize bookshelves, Ivelisse,” Miralin said softly. “I organized the tax shelters that paid for the dress you’re wearing. I organized the offshore accounts that bought the car you drove here in. And I organized the encryption keys for the accounts Blaine uses to hide his gambling debts from the board.”

A collective gasp, sharp and scandalous, hissed through the room.

“Lies,” Blaine screamed, his veins bulging in his neck. “She’s lying. She’s crazy. That’s why I left her.”

“Am I?” Miralin asked.

She raised a hand, and the massive screen behind the stage, intended to display a slideshow of Blaine’s achievements, flickered. Alden had tapped a single command into his watch. The screen changed. It was not a slideshow. It was a live feed of the Thornwall Industries bank ledger. Lines of red code were scrolling rapidly, draining from one column and populating another labeled Chimera Acquisitions.

“That’s the live feed from the Singapore transfer,” Miralin narrated, her voice devoid of malice, just stating facts. “Blaine, you authorized an auto-liquidation at 4:45 p.m. to buy what you thought was a competitor. You set the price ceiling to unlimited because you were so desperate to win. You bought Chimera’s toxic assets for 3 times their value, effectively bankrupting your liquid reserves, while simultaneously handing me the controlling stock options.”

She turned to him, her gray eyes piercing. “I didn’t steal your company, Blaine. You bought it from me, and you paid a premium.”

Leocadia Thornwall, the matriarch who had spent years making Miralin feel small, criticizing her cooking, her clothes, her background, stood up from her table. She was trembling, not with fear, but with calculation. She looked at her son, who was unraveling, and then at Miralin, who was ascending.

Leocadia walked over to Miralin. The room held its breath. Was she going to slap her?

Leocadia reached out and smoothed a non-existent crease on Miralin’s shoulder. “That color is stunning on you, darling,” Leocadia said, her voice dripping with sudden terrified honey. “I always said you had the best taste in the family.”

Miralin looked at the older woman’s hand, then met her eyes. There was no warmth in Miralin’s gaze, only a terrifying clarity.

“Don’t, Leocadia,” Miralin said quietly. “The ship has sailed, and you’re not on the manifest.”

She turned away, leaving the matriarch stunned and pale.

“We’re done here,” Miralin said to Alden.

“Wait.” Blaine lunged forward, grabbing Miralin’s arm.

It was a mistake.

Before Blaine’s fingers could fully close around her bicep, Alden moved. It was a blur of motion, too fast for the tipsy crowd to track. 1 moment Blaine was grabbing her, the next he was on his knees, his arm twisted behind his back at a painful angle, Alden standing over him with a face like a thunderstorm.

“Do not,” Alden whispered, the sound vibrating with lethal intent, “touch her.”

“Alden,” Miralin said. Her voice was calm, a command.

Alden looked at her. The fury in his eyes receded, replaced by that unwavering loyalty. He released Blaine, who scrambled back, clutching his shoulder, panting, humiliated in front of the people he lived to impress.

“Let’s go,” Miralin said. “I have a board meeting at 8:00 a.m.”

She walked out the way she came, the crowd parting with reverence now. They were not looking at a divorcee anymore. They were looking at the new queen, and in the world of high finance, the king was dead.

Long live the queen.

The boardroom of Thornwall Industries was located on the 50th floor, a glass box floating in the sky. At 7:55 a.m., it was usually empty, save for an intern setting out water bottles. That day, it was full. The 12 board members sat in varying states of anxiety. Blaine sat at the head of the table, looking like he had not slept. His tie was crooked. His eyes were bloodshot. Beside him sat Dorian Highmore, looking equally pale.

“This is illegal,” Blaine was saying, slamming his hand on the mahogany. “It’s entrapment. It’s fraud. We’ll sue her into the ground.”

“Technically,” Dorian mumbled, shuffling papers, “it was a legal market transaction, Blaine. You signed the purchase order. You waived due diligence because you wanted to close before the gala.”

“Because she tricked me,” Blaine shouted.

The double doors swung open.

Miralin did not walk in. She arrived.

She wore a white power suit, sharp tailored wool that made her look like a blade of light. Alden was not with her. That was not his fight. That was hers.

She walked to the head of the table.

“You’re in my seat, Blaine,” she said.

“I am the CEO,” Blaine spat, not moving. “You might own the stock, but the board appoints the CEO. And this board is loyal to me.”

He looked around the table. “Right? Tell her.”

The board members shifted in their seats. They were old men, mostly, friends of Blaine’s father. They liked the status quo.

“Miralin,” said Mr. Henderson, the oldest member, “we appreciate your bold financial maneuvering. But leading a conglomerate requires experience. Blaine has been leading us for 3 years.”

“Leading you into a 40% deficit in R&D?” Miralin asked, placing her briefcase on the table. She did not sit. She loomed. “Leading you into 3 environmental lawsuits that he hid from the quarterly reports? Leading you into a merger with Omnicorp that was actually a Ponzi scheme I had to personally deconstruct and rebuild so the SEC did not raid this building?”

Henderson blinked. “You… you did that?”

“Who do you think wrote the Omnicorp proposal, Mr. Henderson? Blaine?” Miralin laughed, a dry, humorless sound. “Blaine thinks due diligence is a racehorse he bet on last year.”

She opened her briefcase and slid a single black folder to Henderson.

“Inside that folder is a list of every bribe Blaine has paid to zoning officials in the last 18 months. It also contains the IP logs showing he’s been using company servers to mine cryptocurrency for his personal debt relief.”

The room went dead silent. Blaine’s face drained of color.

“That’s… that’s fabricated,” Blaine whispered.

“It’s timestamped,” Miralin countered. “And it’s already been sent to the SEC. Unless—”

She let the word hang in the air.

“Unless?” Henderson asked, his voice trembling. He opened the folder, saw the first page, and snapped it shut, looking at Blaine with disgust.

“Unless the board votes, effective immediately, to remove Blaine Thornwall as CEO for cause, and appoints me as interim chairperson to handle the restructuring. If you do that, we handle the irregularities internally as bad management decisions, rather than criminal fraud. I save the stock price. You save your pensions.”

She leaned forward, placing her hands on the table.

“So, gentlemen, do you want to go to jail with Blaine, or do you want to go to the moon with me?”

Blaine looked around the table. He saw the shift in their eyes, the loyalty dissolving like sugar in hot tea.

“No,” Blaine pleaded. “Henderson, please. My father—”

“Your father would be ashamed,” Henderson said, gruffly.

He raised his hand. “I move to remove Blaine Thornwall as CEO.”

“Seconded,” said another member instantly.

“Third.”

“Fourth.”

Hands went up around the table, every single 1.

Miralin looked at Blaine. “Motion carried. Please vacate the building, Mr. Thornwall. Security will escort you to ensure you don’t take any sensitive materials.”

Blaine stood up. He looked smaller now. The arrogance was gone, replaced by a terrified, hollow realization that he was entirely alone.

“You planned this,” he whispered to her as he passed. “Every second. You were sleeping next to me, planning my funeral.”