THE FORGOTTEN HEIR

CHAPTER SIX: ENEMIES IN VELVET GLOVES

The boardroom was silent. Not the peaceful kind — the kind that prickled Derek’s skin, heavy with unspoken threats.

Twelve men sat around the polished obsidian table, each a giant in their field. Men who had once smiled at his father, toasted with his grandfather. Now they stared at Derek Dawson with eyes that tried to undress him of his legitimacy.

“You called this meeting,” said Gerald Linford, a senior partner from the London wing. “We assumed it would be something… pressing.”

Derek leaned forward, sliding a document to the center of the table. “It is.”

The paper bore a simple title: Unauthorized Asset Liquidation & Funds Diversion — Internal Audit Report. It was enough to suck the arrogance from every man in that room.

One by one, the names surfaced in the report. Gerald Linford. Charles Mendel. And worst of all—Martin Cray, his late father’s closest ally. The very man who had whispered advice into Derek’s ears since he was twelve.

“You embezzled over forty million dollars from Dawson’s subsidiaries,” Derek said quietly, his voice like steel wrapped in silk. “Do you deny it?”

Mendel scoffed. “You think this throne makes you a king? You’re a figurehead, Derek. A boy in a man’s chair. You don’t know how this empire breathes.”

Derek smiled thinly. “You’re right. I don’t know how you breathe — stealing behind closed doors, stabbing the family that fed you. But I know how to suffocate betrayal.”

He tapped the table twice. A door opened. Two lawyers and a security officer entered with folders and sealed warrants.

“This is a hostile extraction,” Derek said calmly. “You’ve been relieved of your duties effective immediately. Legal proceedings begin tonight.”

There was shouting. Threats. Gerald pounded the table with an arthritic fist. “You’ll regret this! You don’t understand who we are!”

“I do,” Derek said, rising. “You’re enemies in velvet gloves. But I’m no longer the errand boy.”

Thirty minutes later, Derek sat in his private office, the storm still thrumming through his chest. He poured himself a glass of whiskey but didn’t drink it. His hand trembled—not from fear, but from fury barely contained.

He picked up the framed photo of his parents. His mother had died young, and his father… his father had trusted the wrong men.

Never again.

His phone buzzed.

Incoming call: Tahlia.

Derek stared at it, lips tightening. He hadn’t heard her voice in weeks. She had gone from radio silence to blowing up his phone ever since news broke of his new position.

He let it ring out.

Moments later, a text came in:

Tahlia: “Please, Derek. Can we talk? It’s not what you think.”

He almost laughed.

That evening, Derek returned to his penthouse. He didn’t expect company.

But she was there.

Tahlia.

Dressed in white silk like some tragic movie heroine, mascara smudged just enough to suggest remorse.

“I let myself in,” she said softly. “Still remembered the code.”

He didn’t respond.

She stepped closer, hands trembling. “I heard what you did. The boardroom. The firings. You’re… you’re incredible, Derek.”

He studied her, unmoved.

“I was foolish,” she continued. “So lost. I didn’t know how to support you when you were struggling. I thought you had nothing left.”

“You thought wrong,” he said coldly. “You left when things got hard. That’s not love. That’s convenience.”

Tahlia’s eyes welled. “I want to make things right.”

Derek stared at her. Then quietly said, “You want back into the empire. Not into my life.”

The silence stretched. She blinked, her lips parting, but no defense came.

And that told him everything.

He turned away. “Leave the keys on the table when you go.”

The next day, Derek called in his trusted private investigator, Wyatt.

“I need you to look into Tahlia’s movements during the last six months. Especially her involvement with Miles Beckford.”

Wyatt raised a brow. “The actor?”

Derek nodded grimly. “Something about their timing doesn’t sit right.”

He’d let her walk for now, but Derek wasn’t a man who forgave betrayal easily. And he was beginning to suspect that the rot in his life ran deeper than the boardroom.

Later that night, an anonymous email slid into his encrypted inbox.

Subject: TRUST NO ONE. THEY’RE CLOSER THAN YOU THINK.

Attached was a photo.

Tahlia. Miles Beckford. And…

Martin Cray.

The man he just fired.

Derek leaned back in his chair, heart pounding as his entire body tensed.

The betrayals weren’t just greed.

They were planned.

Coordinated.

Personal.

His rise had disturbed something far more dangerous than corporate fraud.

Cliffhanger Ending

Just as Derek was processing the email, his office lights flickered.

Then went out.

A second later, the red emergency bulb glowed dimly.

And a voice echoed from the security intercom.

“We warned you not to dig too deep, Dawson.”

Derek froze.

Not because of the threat.

But because the voice belonged to someone he thought was long dead.

His uncle.

Dead for ten years.