Chapter 4
The receptionist’s eyes went wide when she saw me.
“Mrs. Callahan,” she said, standing up quickly. “Mr. Callahan isn’t in yet—”
“I know,” I said, walking past her desk without stopping. “I’m not here to see him. I’m here to take his job.”
Arthur and I stepped into the private elevator that only Derek and the executive team used. He swiped a key card I had never seen before.
“Your father had this arranged yesterday,” he said. “All access. All floors. All systems. Derek’s credentials were deactivated at midnight. He couldn’t get in here now if he tried.”
The elevator rose to the tenth floor.
The doors opened directly into Derek’s office suite—or rather, my office suite now.
It was everything Derek had ever wanted: floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city, a desk the size of a small car, expensive art on the walls that I had picked out but he had taken credit for.
Sitting on the leather sofa were three people.
Two men and one woman.
All dressed in expensive business attire. All watching the elevator doors with varying degrees of nervousness.
Arthur leaned in.
“From left to right,” he said quietly. “Vincent Rao, Chief Operating Officer. Been with the company since the beginning—one of the original seven employees. Good man. Smart. Derek ignored him. Then there’s Mark Timmons, the CFO we discussed. And finally, Helen Voss, General Counsel. Sharp as a tack. Derek hated her because she kept telling him no.”
I nodded.
“Thank you, Arthur.”
I walked into the room.
All three stood.
“Mrs. Callahan,” Vincent Rao said. He was in his late forties, with a weary face and calloused hands that told me he still occasionally went out into the warehouses. “What’s going on? Mark got an email at five this morning saying there was an emergency executive meeting. Derek isn’t answering his phone.”
I walked around the massive desk and sat in Derek’s chair.
It was too big. Too masculine. Everything about it screamed Derek.
But I sat there anyway.
“Derek will not be joining us,” I said. “In fact, Derek will not be coming into this office ever again. Effective last night, he has been removed from all positions at Callahan Logistics. I am the new Chief Executive Officer.”
Silence.
Absolute, stunned silence.
Mark Timmons was the first to recover.
He was a fleshy man with red cheeks and a sweat stain already spreading across the collar of his shirt, despite the air conditioning.
“That’s—that’s impossible,” he sputtered. “Derek owns this company. He’s the majority shareholder. You can’t just—”
“Actually,” Helen Voss interrupted. She was in her early forties, with short dark hair and glasses that gave her a severe look. “She can. I reviewed the trust documents three years ago when Derek tried to put the building up as collateral for a loan I told him he couldn’t afford. Mrs. Callahan—Clara—is the sole beneficiary of the Langford Family Trust, which owns seventy-eight percent of the voting shares. She can fire anyone. Including Derek. Including us.”
She looked at me.
“Though I’d appreciate it if you didn’t,” she added. “I’ve spent three years trying to clean up his messes. I’d like to see what happens when someone competent is in charge.”
I almost smiled.
“Thank you, Helen,” I said. “Your job is safe. For now. Everyone’s job is safe—for now. But we are going to make changes. Starting immediately.”
I turned to Mark Timmons.
His face had gone from red to pale.
“Mark,” I said. “Arthur, please show Mark the report.”
Arthur opened his briefcase and pulled out a bound document. He slid it across the desk to the CFO.
Mark opened it.
His hands started shaking.
Page after page of his own handiwork.
Every payment to every shell company. Every approved expense that should never have been approved. Every signature. Every date. Every dollar amount.
“I—I can explain,” he said, his voice trembling. “Derek made me do it. He said if I didn’t—if I didn’t help him, he’d fire me. He said he’d ruin me in the industry. I have a family. Kids in college. I couldn’t—”
“Save it,” I said. “You had a duty to this company and its shareholders. You chose your friendship with Derek over that duty. You chose seven to ten million dollars in stolen money over doing the right thing.”
I leaned forward.
“You have two options,” I said. “Option one: you resign today, effective immediately. You return every penny you stole. You cooperate fully with our investigation into Derek’s activities. And in return, we don’t press criminal charges. We don’t tell the press. We don’t ruin your life any more than you’ve already ruined it yourself.”
Mark swallowed hard.
“And option two?”
“Option two: security escorts you out of the building in handcuffs,” I said. “We call the FBI. We hold a press conference. Your name is in every paper in the state. Your kids see their father’s face on the evening news. And you spend the next ten to fifteen years in a federal prison, sharing a cell with someone who doesn’t care that you used to be a CFO.”
I paused.
“You have five minutes to decide.”
Mark looked at the report.
He looked at Helen, whose expression told him she had already written his exit letter.
He looked at Vincent, who shook his head in disappointment.
Then he looked at me.
He saw the woman whose husband he had helped betray.
He saw the woman who now held his entire future in her hands.
“I’ll take option one,” he whispered.
“Good,” I said. “Helen will draft the resignation and the restitution agreement. Arthur will walk you to your office. You’ll pack your personal things. You’ll be gone within the hour. And Mark—”
He stopped, his hand on the doorframe.
“If I find one penny missing that isn’t accounted for,” I said, “option two is back on the table. Do we understand each other?”
He nodded so quickly his chin wobbled.
Then he was gone.
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.
Vincent Rao let out a low whistle.
“Damn,” he said. “I knew Derek was an idiot. I didn’t know he was stupid enough to steal from the Langfords.” He looked at me with new respect. “You’re not at all what I expected, Mrs. Callahan.”
“Clara,” I corrected. “And what did you expect?”
“Derek’s wife,” he said. “The woman who smiled at parties and never said anything. The arm candy.”
I nodded.
“That’s what everyone expected,” I said. “That’s what Derek wanted everyone to see. But I’m done being what other people want. Starting today, this company runs differently. No more Derek’s friends in high places. No more unapproved expenses. No more Sloane Averys on the payroll.”
I turned to Helen.
“Speaking of Sloane—she’s Senior VP of Marketing. I want her gone today. No severance. No references. Just gone. And I want every charge she ever made on a company card itemized and sent to her personal address with a bill. If she doesn’t pay within thirty days, we sue.”
Helen was already typing on her tablet.
“Already on it,” she said. “Her employment contract had a morals clause—though Derek never enforced it. Sleeping with the CEO and defrauding the company definitely qualifies. She’ll be out before lunch. And I’ll have the invoice on her desk by end of day.”
“Good,” I said.
I looked at Vincent.
“Vincent—you’ve been here since the beginning. You know how this company actually works. Derek ignored operations because he thought it was beneath him. He cared about the flash—the speeches, the parties, the building. But the trucks don’t run on speeches. Tell me what we need.”
Vincent leaned forward, and for the first time, I saw real energy in him.
“First,” he said, “we need to kill the Dallas expansion. Derek signed a three-million-dollar lease on a facility there three months ago. We don’t have the client base to support it. We’re paying for empty warehouse space. Second—our delivery fleet is falling apart. Derek bought luxury cars for the executives instead of replacing the old trucks. Half our fleet is over ten years old. Breakdowns are costing us contracts. Third—our dispatch software is from 2018. Derek refused to upgrade because it was ‘too expensive.’ Meanwhile, our competitors can route a truck in ten seconds while we’re still doing it with spreadsheets.”
He paused.
“Honestly? Derek was running this company into the ground. If your father hadn’t stepped in when he did, we would’ve been bankrupt within eighteen months. Maybe sooner.”
The news was worse than I had expected.
But I also saw something else.
Vincent wasn’t just complaining.
He was ready to fix it.
“Okay,” I said. “Here’s what we’re going to do. Helen—you handle the legal side: Mark, Sloane, any other Derek loyalists we need to push out. Review every contract Derek signed in the last two years. If any of them stink, find us a way out. Vincent—you handle operations. Kill the Dallas lease today. Start getting quotes on new trucks. Research new dispatch software. I want options on my desk by the end of the week.”
I stood up.
“And I want all of Derek’s things out of this office by noon,” I said. “The furniture. The art. The photos. Everything. Burn it if you have to. I don’t want a single thing that reminds me of him in here.”
Arthur, who had been quiet until now, spoke up.
“Clara,” he said. “There’s something else. Something you need to see before the day gets away from you.”
He pulled a tablet from his briefcase and slid it across the desk.
It was open to a news website.
The headline made my blood run cold.
**EXCLUSIVE: CALLAHAN LOGISTICS CEO DEREK CALLAHAN OUSTED BY BILLIONAIRE FATHER-IN-LAW AMID FRAUD ALLEGATIONS**
The article had been posted twenty minutes ago.
It was already trending.
I looked at the byline.
Sloane Avery.
That bitch.
She hadn’t wasted any time.
She had taken everything she knew—or thought she knew—and sold it to the highest bidder.
The article was full of lies mixed with just enough truth to be dangerous. It claimed Derek had been forced out by a greedy wife and her controlling father. It claimed I had been cheating on Derek for years. It claimed my father had been using the company as his personal piggy bank.
And at the bottom, there was a quote from Derek himself.
“I built that company from nothing,” he was quoted as saying. “I worked eighteen-hour days for a decade. And now Charles Langford and his daughter have stolen it from me because I wouldn’t let them run it into the ground. This isn’t business. It’s a hostile takeover by people who have never worked an honest day in their lives. I will fight this. I will get my company back. And when I do, the Langford name will be synonymous with theft and corruption.”
Helen leaned over and read the headline.
“Damn,” she said. “That was fast.”
Vincent swore under his breath.
“Sloane,” I said. “She gave them the story. And Derek gave them the quote. They’re trying to spin this before we can get our version out.”
I thought for exactly three seconds.
Then I stood up.
“Arthur,” I said. “Call every major news outlet in the state. Business journals. Local TV. The AP. Tell them I’m holding a press conference in the main lobby in one hour. Tell them I’ll be making a statement and taking questions.”
Arthur’s eyebrows went up.
“Are you sure? You’ve never—”
“I’ve never had to,” I said. “But Derek wants a war? Fine. He wants to play dirty? I learned from the best.” I glanced at my father’s number on my phone, then put it away. “But this is my fight. I’m not calling Daddy to fix it. I’m going to fix it myself.”
Helen was already standing.
“I’ll draft a statement,” she said. “We need to be careful—”
“No statement,” I said. “I’m going to speak from the heart. And Helen? Make sure the cameras are rolling when Sloane gets escorted out of the building. I want the whole world to see exactly who Derek Callahan chose over his wife.”
I walked to the window and looked out over the city.
Thousands of people below.
None of them knew who I really was.
May you like
But they were about to find out.
“One hour,” I said. “Let’s make it count.”
