Chapter 4
The next week was chaos.
Every morning, I woke up to a new headline.
“ELENA VOSS: GOLD DIGGER OR MONSTER?”
“LANGFORD MATRIARCH FIGHTS FOR JUSTICE AGAINST BILLIONAIRE BULLY.”
“SOURCES: VOSS HEIRESS HAS HISTORY OF VIOLENCE.”
Helen was everywhere.
On every talk show.
On every news channel.
Crying.
Begging.
Telling the world I’d stolen her grandson, stolen her company, stolen her life.
She was very, very good at it.
Half the country hated me.
The other half hated her.
It didn’t matter.
I didn’t care about public opinion.
I cared about Leo.
And I cared about Langford Group.
Every day, my team bought more stock.
Through twelve different shell companies.
In tiny, untraceable chunks.
By Thursday, we owned 22%.
By Friday, 31%.
Helen had no idea.
She was too busy doing interviews.
Too busy counting the money from her stock sale.
Too busy planning her next lawsuit.
The annual Langford Group shareholders’ meeting was scheduled for Saturday morning.
Helen planned to use it to announce her “retirement.”
To anoint her hand-picked successor.
To rally the shareholders behind her and paint me as the villain trying to destroy their company.
I decided to attend.
Saturday morning, I wore a tailored navy suit.
Simple pearl earrings.
My hair pulled back tight.
I looked like exactly what I was: the largest shareholder of the company we were about to take over.
Mia came with me.
She was still scared of Helen.
But she walked into that building with her head held high.
The ballroom was packed.
Every major shareholder was there.
Hundreds of people.
Helen stood on the stage at the front.
Spotlight on her.
She was in the middle of her speech when we walked in.
“…and I will not let this ruthless outsider come in here and destroy everything my husband and I spent forty years building!” she shouted.
The crowd cheered.
Then she saw me.
Her voice died in her throat.
The room went quiet.
Every head turned.
I walked slowly down the center aisle.
Up the steps to the stage.
Helen’s lawyer stepped in front of me.
“You have no right to be here,” he hissed.
“This meeting is for shareholders only.”
I smiled.
Pulled a thick stack of papers from my folder.
Handed them to him.
“I own 38% of Langford Group,” I said, loud enough for the whole room to hear.
“That makes me the single largest shareholder in this company. I have every right to be here. In fact… I’m the only one in this room who does.”
The room erupted.
People shouted.
Grabbed for their phones.
Helen turned white.
“That’s impossible!” she screamed.
“I own 40%! You couldn’t have—”
“You owned 40%,” I said.
“Until you sold half of it last week to fund your lawsuits. Did you really think those shell companies buying your stock were random investors? Did you never stop to ask who was on the other end of those trades?”
I turned to the crowd.
“For forty years, Helen Langford has run this company like her own personal bank account. She’s embezzled over $180 million from the pension fund. She’s taken bribes from contractors. She’s fired anyone who dared to question her. And last year alone, she paid herself a $42 million bonus while laying off twelve hundred factory workers.”
I nodded to Marcus, who was standing by the projector.
The screen behind Helen lit up.
Bank records.
Emails.
Signed confessions from her accountants.
Proof of every single crime.
The room went dead silent.
Helen stumbled back.
Her face was ashen.
“I call for an immediate vote,” I said.
“To remove Helen Langford from the board. To remove her hand-picked CEO. To appoint Mia Langford as interim CEO, effective immediately. All in favor?”
Hands went up.
One by one.
First the small shareholders.
Then the big ones.
Then even Helen’s oldest friend on the board raised his hand.
The vote was 82% in favor.
Helen was finished.
She stood there.
Alone on the stage.
Staring at the crowd that had cheered her five minutes earlier.
Then she looked at me.
Her eyes were black with hate.
“You think you’ve won?” she whispered, so only I could hear.
“You think taking my company hurts me? I don’t care about Langford. I never did. It was just a tool. You want to know what I really care about?”
She leaned closer.
“Your son. I will spend every last cent I have left. I will spend the rest of my life. I will burn the whole world down before I let you keep him. Mark my words, Elena. Before this month is over… Leo will be mine.”
She turned and walked off the stage.
The crowd parted for her.
No one cheered.
No one said a word.
Mia squeezed my hand.
“She’s just talking,” she said.
“She’s got nothing left. She can’t hurt us.”
I hoped she was right.
But I knew Helen.
I knew that look in her eyes.
That wasn’t the look of a woman who’d given up.
That was the look of a woman who had nothing left to lose.
And women with nothing left to lose were the most dangerous kind of all.
That night, I was tucking Leo into bed when his teacher called.
Her voice was shaking.
“Elena? I’m so sorry. I don’t know how to tell you this. Leo was in the after-school program today. We had a substitute. She signed him out to a woman at 3:45 p.m. The woman had your ID. She had a note with your signature. We thought… we thought it was you.”
The world tilted.
I grabbed Leo’s blanket from the bed.
It was still warm.
He’d been there ten minutes earlier.
I’d just stepped out to get him a glass of water.
No.
No, no, no.
I ran to the window.
Looked down at the street.
A white van was pulling away from the curb.
May you like
On the back window, written in soap, were three words.
I WIN, ELAINE.
