Chapter 3 - The Phone Call That Changes Everything
Marcus pulled a sleek, encrypted satellite phone from his breast pocket and tapped the screen twice before extending it toward Maya. The glowing display showed an incoming call labeled simply as 'Father.' Maya accepted the device without breaking eye contact with the trembling store owner, whose expensive black blazer now looked less like a power suit and more like a straitjacket.
"Put it on speaker, please, Marcus," Maya instructed softly, her tone entirely devoid of the warmth one might expect from a daughter speaking to her father.
Marcus pressed a button on the side of the casing, and the deep, gravelly voice of Arthur Vance filled the silent boutique. Every single patron leaned in slightly, desperate to catch every syllable falling from the lips of the billionaire patriarch.
"Marcus, report," Arthur’s voice boomed through the high-end speakers. "Have you located Maya? Why is the security detail delayed?"
"I am right here, Dad," Maya spoke clearly into the microphone. "And you will be fascinated to learn what kind of welcoming committee your flagship boutique manager prepared for me."
On the other end of the line, there was a heavy, ominous pause. When Arthur spoke again, the temperature in the room dropped ten degrees.
"Explain," the Chairman commanded.
Maya kept her eyes locked on Elena, who had dropped to her knees on the marble floor, her manicured fingers clawing desperately at the hem of Maya’s grey dress in a pathetic bid for mercy. Maya stepped back slightly, letting the older woman grasp at empty air.
"I walked through the front doors to inspect the new seasonal layout," Maya said evenly. "Ms. Vance here decided that my presence lowered the tone of her store. She shoved me to the ground, screamed obscenities at me, and ordered me to crawl back to the gutter. She called me trash."
The silence that followed was absolute. It was the kind of terrifying silence that precedes a volcanic eruption. Elena was hyperventilating now, soft, pathetic whimpers escaping her throat as she realized the sheer magnitude of her professional suicide.
"Elena Vance is running that branch?" Arthur asked, his voice dangerously low.
"She was," Maya replied.
"She is stripped of her title, her shares, and her pension, effective immediately," Arthur declared, the verdict delivered with the cold finality of an executioner's axe. "Have corporate security escort her off the premises. Throw her personal belongings into the alley. And initiate a full forensic audit of that store's financial records by midnight. If she treated my daughter like trash, there is no telling what she has been embezzling from the company."
"Understood, Chairman," Marcus replied crisply.
May you like
Before Maya could reply to her father, the heavy glass doors of the boutique blasted open once again, revealing three armed local police officers accompanied by a frantic mall manager holding a thick stack of uncollected tax liens.
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