Chapter 3 - The Paper Trail
The murmur from the ballroom died down instantly. A few curious groomsmen had drifted to the threshold, drinks in hand, sensing that the delay was far more serious than a bride touching up her lipstick.
“Rachel, stop this vindictive nonsense!” Allison snapped, her voice suddenly sharp as a whip. The sweet, demure persona she had wore all morning was peeling away like cheap paint. “Grant Holloway reached out to me as an olive branch. He wanted to give his son a wedding present! He knew Noah wouldn't take a call from him, so he asked me to mediate. I was trying to heal your broken family before we started our lives together!”
“A wedding present?” Rachel let out a dry, bitter laugh that echoed off the marble tiles. She stood up, leaning against Noah for balance as her heels clicked against the floor. “Is that what you call corporate theft, Allison?”
Noah stood up with her, towering over both women. His gaze snapped back to his sister. “What are you talking about?”
Rachel unzipped the small compartment of the leather envelope she had guarded with her life. She pulled out a stack of folded documents, creased and slightly damp from her clenched palms, and thrust them into Noah’s chest.
“Look at the signatures,” Rachel said, her voice steadying with fury. “Look at the date. Look at the company name.”
Noah unfolded the papers. At the top of the first page was the letterhead of Holloway Dynamics—his father’s multinational holding firm. The very empire Noah had walked away from seven years ago, swearing he would never take a single cent of dirty money after Grant abandoned their dying mother to protect his offshore shell companies.
Beneath the corporate seal was a standard merger and acquisition rider. But as Noah’s eyes skimmed down the dense legal text, the blood drained completely from his face.
The document detailed the sale of Vanguard Systems—Noah’s own software startup, the company he had poured five years of sweat, sleepless nights, and life savings into building from scratch.
And on the signature line for the seller, authorized under a special power of attorney signed during their engagement when Noah had named Allison his corporate executor in case of emergency, was Allison’s neat, flowing cursive.
Right next to it, stamped in gold foil, was the signature of Grant Holloway.
“You sold my life’s work to my father?” Noah’s voice was barely a whisper, but it carried the weight of an executioner’s axe.
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Allison took another step back, her chest heaving against the boning of her corset. “Noah, you don’t understand the financial situation. The venture capital round fell through last month! You were going to go bankrupt! Grant offered thirty million dollars to absorb the debt. He agreed to let you stay on as CEO! He saved you!”
“He didn’t save me,” Noah said, his hands beginning to shake with cold, unbridled fury. “He bought me. And you acted as his broker.”
