Chapter 6 - The Plot Against the ProdigyCelebrations in London were short-lived, for ambition breeds enemies—and in the cutthroat corporate world, Julian Vance and his humiliated father refused to accept defeat lying down.
Three days after the symposium, inside a private executive suite in Mayfair, Julian slammed his fist onto a mahogany desk so hard that a crystal decanter rattled.
“She humiliated us, Dad!” Julian snarled, pacing across the plush Persian rug. “She took the grand prize, she took the fellowship grant, and Daniel Whitmore treated her like corporate royalty right in front of the entire international academic community!”
Arthur Vance—a formidable, silver-haired corporate raider whose company was teetering on the edge of financial insolvency—sat calmly in a leather armchair, swirling amber scotch in a crystal glass. His face was cold, weathered, and hardened by decades of ruthless corporate warfare.
“Calm down, Julian,” Arthur said, his voice like gravel grinding together. “Anger makes you sloppy. Whitmore may have protected her patent, but he hasn't protected her family back in America.”
Julian stopped pacing, turning to his father with a sharp look of inquiry. “What do you mean?”
Arthur leaned forward, tapping his finger against the desk. “Our investigators in Ohio dug up more than school transcripts. Elena’s father—the disabled mill worker—is currently involved in a lingering industrial compensation dispute with a subsidiary firm that we quietly control through shell companies.”
A malicious grin spread across Julian’s face. “You can freeze his settlement.”
“Better than that,” Arthur corrected softly. “We can fabricate a breach of contract regarding their home equity loan—the very loan Whitmore’s lawyers just paid off. If we challenge the legality of the third-party payoff in a local rust-belt court before Whitmore’s legal team realizes what’s happening, we can slap an emergency lien on their property and drag the family through a public foreclosure proceeding just as Elena returns home.”
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Julian’s eyes gleamed with vindictive delight. “And when the media gets wind of a scandal involving Whitmore’s newly adopted academic protégé, our stock will recover as we frame her family as fraudulent scam artists.”
“Exactly,” Arthur said, raising his glass. “Checkmate, my boy. Let’s see how fast her brilliant equations save her house when the sheriff padlocks the front door.”
