Chapter 3 - The Boardroom AmbushesThe crisis did not wait for Roman Hale to figure out how to be a father. It arrived at 8:00 AM the following Thursday morning in the form of an emergency text from Daniel Price: The board has called a closed session for nine o'clock. Voss is there. They have copies of a medical filing from Solano County. They know, Roman.
Roman sat at his mahogany desk in the Hale Biotech skyscraper downtown, the glass walls showing the gray expanse of the Financial District. He hadn't slept more than three hours a night since the diner. His penthouse was currently being overseen by a small army of child-care specialists Vance had vetted within twelve hours, but Claire had refused to leave the children’s side, turning his guest wing into a barricaded fortress of cribs, toys, and the constant, high-pitched chatter of six distinct personalities.
The door to his office swung open without a knock.
Malcolm Voss walked in first. At sixty-two, the chairman of NorthBridge Labs looked like the elder statesman of Silicon Valley—silver hair, tailored tweed jacket, and a smile that had been surgically altered to look trustworthy on television. Behind him came Victoria Sterling, the lead independent director of Hale Biotech’s board, her face as hard as the diamonds around her neck.
"Roman," Voss said, his voice dripping with an artificial, paternal concern that made Roman's skin crawl. "We didn't want to do this through the legal department, but given the... extraordinary circumstances, we felt an informal discussion was necessary before the morning trading session opens."
Roman didn't stand up. He leaned back in his chair, his fingers interlaced over his stomach, his face a perfect mask of corporate indifference. "You're thirty minutes early for a meeting you didn't invite me to, Malcolm. If you're here to audit my calendar, you can talk to my assistant."
Victoria Sterling stepped forward, dropping a thick, blue-bound folder onto his desk with a heavy slap. "Don't play games, Roman. We have the birth records from the Vacaville maternal center from five years ago. Six children, born to Claire Whitaker. The genetic sequence identifiers listed in the confidential research logs at NorthBridge match your private profile on file with the company’s health plan."
"And?" Roman asked, his voice flat.
"And Claire Whitaker was a senior research fellow at NorthBridge when she left," Voss said, his eyes glittering with a cold, predatory light. "She was working on our proprietary selective gene-repair vectors—vectors that Hale Biotech has spent three hundred million dollars trying to acquire through our patent dispute. If she used NorthBridge technology, NorthBridge facilities, and your genetic material to create six multi-split identical children who possess enhanced genetic traits... those children aren't just your family, Roman. They are a corporate asset under our current research umbrella."
The room went completely cold.
Roman felt a dark, ancient rage stir in the base of his skull—the same rage that had made him destroy three competitors before his thirtieth birthday. He looked at the blue folder on his desk, then up at Voss’s smiling face.
"An asset," Roman repeated, his voice dropping into a register that made Victoria Sterling look toward the door.
"From a strictly legal standpoint," Voss continued, entirely oblivious to the line he had just crossed, "the children represent the only successful live-birth outcome of the Voss-Whitaker sequencing method. The patent belongs to NorthBridge. If you try to shield her, or if you try to claim custody without our involvement, we will file an injunction for genetic property preservation. We'll have those kids in a federal medical testing facility before the week is out to verify the vector stability."
Roman rose from his chair slowly. He didn't rush. He stood to his full height, his broad shoulders casting a shadow across the desk that seemed to swallow the blue folder whole.
"Malcolm," Roman said, his voice so quiet it was almost a whisper. "Do you remember what happened to the last company that tried to threaten my mother's medical privacy?"
Voss’s smile faltered slightly. "That was a different matter, Roman. That was standard corporate espionage."
"I bought their debt from seven different European banks within forty-eight hours," Roman said, stepping out from behind the desk. "I forced their board into liquidation, I seized their laboratory assets, and I watched their CEO clear out his desk into a cardboard box while federal marshals waited in the lobby. And that was just for a set of medical records."
He stopped two inches from Voss, his gray-blue eyes burning with a ferocity that made the older man take a step back.
"If you so much as breathe the names of my children to a single reporter, or if you send a single legal notice to Claire Whitaker's door, I will not just destroy NorthBridge. I will spend every dollar of my personal fortune to ensure that you spend the rest of your life defending yourself against human trafficking charges in an international court. Do you understand me?"
Victoria Sterling cleared her throat nervously. "Roman, we have a fiduciary duty to the shareholders. If there is a proprietary link—"
"The only link in this room is the one between my hand and your removal from this board if you say another word, Victoria," Roman barked without looking at her. "Get out of my office. Both of you."
Voss straightened his tweed jacket, his face turning an ugly, mottled red. "This isn't over, Hale. The board has the votes to suspend your executive authority if you're deemed to be acting against the company’s material interests. You can't fight the shareholders and the law at the same time."
"Watch me," Roman said.
When the door slammed shut behind them, Roman stood alone in his office for a long time. His hands were shaking again, but not from the fear that had gripped him in the diner. This was a different kind of adrenaline. For five years, he had fought for market share, for patents, for the clean satisfaction of winning a numbers game.
Now, for the first time in his life, he had something real to defend.
May you like
He reached for his desk phone and dialed Daniel Price’s direct extension.
"Daniel," Roman said when the lawyer answered. "Liquidate my personal trust accounts in London and New York. I want forty-eight percent of Hale Biotech’s common stock under my direct control by the time the opening bell rings tomorrow morning. We're going to war."
