The red recording dot on Tamsin’s phone blinked like an angry wasp. "Keep the lens level, Fray," Romy muttered, kicking open the double oak doors of the Grand Atrium at the St. Jude Media Plaza. "If my cheekbones look bloated on the industry feed, I’m editing your next epilogue into a rhyming couplet." "Darling, your cheekbones are the only thing holding this coup together," Tamsin whispered back, adjusting her sunglasses with two manicured fingers. "Now go drown that viper in her own spritzer." Inside, the morning light hit rows of velvet seats and dozens of reporters clutching iced matcha. At the central podium stood Gemma Prentiss, draped in bespoke cream cashmere, beaming alongside Dallin Royce. Dallin wore a lavender silk tie that screamed generational wealth and zero personal achievements. Behind them, an oversized banner declared: *Sterling & Quill: Celebrating Literary Integrity with Gemma Prentiss*. "—which brings us to our newest initiative," Gemma was saying into the microphone, flashing the pearly smile that had lured a dozen aspiring writers into poverty contracts. "True mentorship isn’t about ego. It’s about guiding rough stones until they shine for the market." "Is that what you call skimmed percentages? Rough stones?" Romy’s voice sliced clean through the air-conditioned hush. Heads pivoted. Shutters clattered. Gemma froze mid-gesture. Her polished smile twitched. "Romy? What on earth are you wearing? Guards, this is an invitation-only press briefing." "Oh, don't mind my moth-eaten trench coat, Gemma. We know I couldn't afford dry cleaning on the cut you left me." Romy strode down the center aisle, boots thudding against the plush carpet. She reached into her pocket and produced a sleek silver thumb drive, tossing it straight onto the sound technician's mixer board. "Plug that into the projector, Jerry, unless you want the labor board looking into your overtime claims too." The young technician glanced between Romy’s bared teeth and Gemma’s widening posture. He shoved the drive into the USB port. "Romy, stop this embarrassing tantrum," Dallin barked, stepping forward to shield Gemma. He offered a practiced, pitying grimace to the cameras. "We all know you took our split hard, but crashing an industry milestone because your little manuscript was deemed unmarketable—" *Click.* The giant four-hundred-inch display behind the stage flickered to life. It wasn't a manuscript. It was a forensic spreadsheet tracking seven years of escrow payments, cross-referenced with offshore shell accounts in the Caymans labeled *Prentiss Talent Development LLC*. Right at the top, highlighted in garish neon yellow, was Dallin’s personal signature accepting an unauthorized forty-thousand-dollar kickback routed from Romy’s first ghostwriting royalty pool. Gasps rippled across the auditorium. Flashes exploded in blinding clusters. "That's an account ledger," a reporter from *The Literary Ledger* shouted, leaning over his seat. "Ms. Prentiss, did you siphon royalty residuals into your partner's consulting firm?" "Shut it off!" Gemma shrieked, dropping her practiced, lilting tone entirely. Her face mottled into an ugly blotch of scarlet beneath her mineral powder. "Jerry, turn the screen off right now! Dallin, grab her!" Dallin lunged forward off the dais, his jaw working helplessly. "This is doctored! She fabricated it! Romy is mentally unstable—she’s been stalking me since our breakup—" "Actually, darling, I compiled the metadata," Tamsin announced, stepping out from the center aisle with her phone held high, broadcasting the spectacle to thirty-eight thousand live viewers on BookPulse. "And unless Romy can forge your mother’s maiden name on a Swiss deposit slip, Dallin, you bought that vintage Alfa Romeo with money stolen from my foreign licensing rights." Dallin stumbled back, his heel catching the fringe of the banner. The entire fabric structure tore free, collapsing over his head in a heap of cheap polyester. He thrashed underneath it like a landed carp. "Security!" Gemma screamed, her knuckles white against the edges of the lectern. She lunged forward, pointing a manicured nail at Romy's face. "Get these feral vagrants out of this building! I run this division! I am the senior vice president of Sterling & Quill, and I will see both of you blacklisted from every print house from here to Vancouver!" Two bulky guards in navy blazers closed in from the flanking aisles. Romy stood square on both heels, collar popped against the stale draft, chin tilted up. The bridge fire smelled like victory. Then the double mahogany doors at the back of the atrium slammed open against the wall with the crack of a pistol shot. A phalanx of nine men and women in tailored charcoal three-piece suits swept into the hall. They moved with the terrifying, rhythmic synchronicity of predators trained at Harvard Law. Behind them strode Maximilian Royston. Gone was the chauffeur cap. Gone was the rented polyester jacket. He wore an ink-black three-piece suit cut by Savile Row artisans, a platinum signet ring gleaming under the chandelier, and an expression that could have frozen magma. His presence sucked all the air out of the room. The reporters turned as one body, the scent of fresh blood pulling their cameras away from the stage. "Mr. Royston?" a woman in the front row gasped, dropping her tablet. "Maximilian Royston is here?" Gemma smoothed her sweater, a desperate, predatory spark leaping into her eyes. "Mr. Royston! Thank heavens. Security, clear the riffraff immediately. Mr. Royston, our board was hoping your conglomerate might consider an investment—" "Quiet, Ms. Prentiss," Max said. His voice was not loud, but it possessed a brutal, resonant gravity that turned the room utterly still. He walked past the stunned security guards, his gaze fixed solely on Romy. He didn't offer a smirk. There was no trace of his easy, bumbling servant persona. There was only raw, unblinking intent. An attorney stepped beside him, holding open a thick calfskin portfolio. Max accepted the folder without glancing down; his focus never left Romy. "As of eight-fifteen this morning," Max said, his voice echoing across the chamber, "Royston Global Capital acquired ninety-two hundredths of Sterling & Quill's outstanding debt and equity, dissolving the current board with immediate effect." Gemma went paper-white. "You... you bought us? Just to save a deranged ghostwriter?" "I bought nothing to save her," Max answered calmly, turning his gaze toward Gemma with the warmth of a butcher assessing pork. "She already ruined you without lifting more than a thumb drive. I bought it because I don't tolerate thieves on my payroll. And frankly, I don't run publishing firms." Max turned back toward Romy. He handed the portfolio across the short distance between them. "Which is why," Max continued, each word measured and ringing, "Royston Capital has irrevocably assigned fifty-one shares out of every hundred directly to Romy Kastell. Legally, Gemma, she is not your client. She is your majority shareholder." The room erupted in a storm of camera shutters. Romy stared at the document held out before her. Her name was embossed in gold leaf across the master certificate: *Primary Stakeholder and Executive Editor-in-Chief*. Her throat burned. "Max... what did you do?" "You told me to prove you're my equal," he said softly, ignoring the hundreds of lenses tracking every twitch of his mouth. "I don't own you, Romy. I could never own you. But if you want to set fire to this rotten town, I can at least buy you the match factory." Gemma collapsed backward into her chair, her jaw trembling. Under the collapsed banner, Dallin let out a muffled whimper of total ruin. Max stepped past the paper, moving straight up to the press podium. With deliberate grace, he leaned in, detached the central microphone from its stand, and turned back to face Romy. Before every media outlet in the country, the most elusive titan in Oakhaven City dropped to one knee.

Hostile Takeover