Chapter 8 - The Price of Glass
"You don't know what you're doing, Julian," Richard whispered, his voice trembling with a mixture of quiet fury and creeping horror. "You are burning down your own home."
"It's not a home, Dad," Julian replied, looking directly into his father's cold, calculating eyes. "It's a cage made of glass. And it's already broken."
Before Richard could reach for the drive, Julian turned on his heel and tossed the black metal object through the air.
It arced gracefully beneath the bright halogen lights, spinning twice before landing with a soft clack on the lap of a female senior investigative reporter sitting in the front row—a woman from the National Press Syndicate who had been attempting to audit Vance Global's patents for two years.
"Check directory seven," Julian called out to her, his voice ringing crisp and true through the silent hall. "It has the original timestamps from Arthur Miller's home server, along with the internal security clearance codes signed by my mother."
The reporter didn't hesitate. She immediately plugged the drive into her high-speed laptop resting on her knees.
"Security!" Richard screamed, his voice cracking into a ragged, desperate shout as he abandoned all pretense of corporate dignity. "Clear the room! Shut down the feeds! Shut down the broadcast!"
Four heavy security guards in black suits rushed from the wings of the stage, but it was already too late.
The live television feeds were broadcasting the entire exchange to three million viewers across the state. The reporter's screen lit up with green lines of code, followed by hundreds of PDF documents bearing the red stamp of Vance Global Logistics' private legal clearance.
"My God..." the reporter whispered, her hands flying over her keyboard as she scanned the screen. "It's all here. The buyout refusals... the arson threat assessments... the offshore transfer logs."
Photographers surged forward like a tidal wave, the bright, blinding flashes of light consuming the stage. Richard threw his hands up to shield his face, but the flashes were relentless, capturing every line of panic, every drop of sweat, every microscopic fracture in the immaculate facade of the Vance medical empire.
Amidst the flashing lights, the shouting reporters, and the chaotic stampede of executives trying to flee toward the rear exits, Julian reached down and took Leo’s small, dirty hand once more.
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He didn't look back at his father, who was now surrounded by three national correspondents thrusting microphones into his face. He didn't look back at the stage.
Side by side, the twelve-year-old heir in his scuffed navy blazer and the nine-year-old boy in his torn grey shirt walked calmly toward the double glass doors at the front of the hotel.
