The tears had barely cleared her vision when she dropped her designer handbag and sprinted back down the hallway, her heels snapping frantically against the hardwood. She had to fix this. She had to bring him to the main table before it was too late.
But when she skidded into the living room, the little wooden side table was empty. The plate of food sat untouched.
“Dad?” she gasped, panic clawing at her throat.
A sudden, booming eruption of laughter echoed from the dining room.
She froze. Pushing through the arched double doors, she expected to find her pretentious socialite friends waiting for dinner. Instead, the air was thick with the scent of expensive cigars and aged scotch. Twelve men and women in razor-sharp corporate suits sat around her grand mahogany table, files open.
At the head of it all sat her father.
Gone was the hunched, frail old man. He sat upright, radiating a ruthless, terrifying authority, holding a gold Montblanc pen over a towering stack of legal documents.
“Ah, there she is,” he said, his voice no longer weak, but striking the room like a whip. “The perfect host.”
“Dad… what is this? Where are my guests?”
“I bought their companies an hour ago and told them to go home,” he replied coldly, signing the final page. “These are my attorneys. We were just finalizing the new successor to the family empire.”
He slid the leather-bound trust folder down the table. Her eyes darted to the bold print. *Sole Controlling Beneficiary: Marcus.* Her seven-year-old son.
“I needed to know how you treat the helpless when you think you hold all the power,” her father sneered, tossing the pen aside. “Pack your bags. And do it quietly. You’re making too much noise.”