Chapter 31 - Meeting Silas Thorne|
The private meeting was deliberately set for the following afternoon in a neutral, highly sterile boardroom located in a luxurious downtown hotel. I wore my sharpest tailored suit, projecting an aura of absolute, unshakeable confidence as I walked into the room. Silas Thorne was already seated at the massive table, idly swirling a glass of sparkling water. He was a sharply dressed man in his late fifties, with cold, calculating grey eyes and a perpetually smug expression that immediately set my teeth completely on edge.
"Ah, the legendary CEO herself," Silas said smoothly, not bothering to stand up as I entered the quiet room. "I must admit, I am highly impressed by how quickly you managed to build your little ethical empire from absolutely nothing."
"It's not a little empire, Silas, and it's certainly not for sale," I replied coldly, taking the seat directly across from him and meeting his icy gaze without flinching. "Your hostile tactics might work on struggling, desperate startups, but you are severely underestimating the defensive capabilities of my corporation."
"Am I?" he chuckled darkly, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the polished wood. "I have highly secured twenty percent of the voting shares, and I have already successfully convinced three of your most prominent institutional investors that your strict ethical guidelines are vastly limiting their potential profit margins. Money always talks louder than morality, my dear."
"Do not patronize me," I warned, my voice deadly calm and dangerously low. "Those institutional investors are completely bound by the strict ethical clauses deliberately written into their original contracts. If they attempt to vote with you to strip the company of its privacy protections, I will drag them into a very public, very humiliating legal battle that will absolutely destroy their public relations."
Silas raised a single, arrogant eyebrow, clearly slightly surprised by my fierce, uncompromising pushback.
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"You are threatening mutually assured destruction over a simple business transaction?" he asked, feigning innocent disbelief.
"I am simply promising you that I will protect the integrity of my company at all absolute costs," I stated firmly, standing up to clearly signify that the short meeting was entirely over. "Withdraw your hostile bid, Silas. Because if you force this aggressive shareholder vote, I promise you that you will lose horribly, and I will personally make sure the entire financial industry knows exactly how it happened."
