Page 48 of The Founder's Power

I don’t respond. I’m too busy staring at the screen and the damning trail laid bare before me like blood across marble.

She didn’t just pass intel. She orchestrated shifts in the board’s internal dynamics. Pushed for deals that made me look strong short-term while quietly weakening long-term infrastructure. She played a dual hand, and she played it well.

My jaw locks.

Clara steps forward. “She’s not here. She left this morning for a ‘client consult’ in Chicago. I already checked. There’s no meeting. It’s a bluff.”

Of course it is. She must’ve realized that Clara was ready to out her. Naomi knows I’ll come for her now.

I close the laptop and stand slowly. It feels like my body needs time to absorb what my mind already knows.

“She was always five moves ahead,” I murmur. “That’s why I brought her in.”

Clara watches me closely. “You couldn’t have seen it, Damian.”

I glance at her. “No, but I should have.”

I walk to the window. Midtown sprawls beneath me with its clean lines and gleaming towers. My kingdom. My battlefield.

My illusion.

I thought I rebuilt smarter and sharper. I thought I purged the rot after Vincent’s last campaign.

But I let Naomi inside with the Veridian Holdings mess. I gave her access and my trust, and she handed that access to the one man who wants to destroy me.

“I need to speak to Isabelle,” I say, my voice rougher than I mean it to be.

Clara nods. “Want me to pull the board?”

“Not yet.”

Not until I know how deep Naomi’s cuts go. Not until I know if there’s anything left to defend.

As Clara leaves, I stay at the window, hands clenched behind my back, every part of me stone.

Not because I’ve lost.

But because I let someone get close again.

And I swore the last time would be the last time.

CHAPTER25

DAMIAN

The walls are coming down. Not metaphorically. Not quietly.

There are actual lawyers in the boardroom. A growing list of resignations. The press is circling like vultures. My phone hasn’t stopped vibrating in hours, but I’ve stopped answering.

None of it matters anymore.

I’m standing in my penthouse, my shirt half-buttoned, tie discarded on the floor, staring at the skyline like it might give me answers. It doesn’t.

The city I once conquered blinks back at me. It’s unmoved and uninterested. It’s unaffected by the man who thought he could outrun loss with power.

Clara tried to warn me this morning. She tried to pull me into another strategy call, another war room session, but I walked out. She didn’t follow.

She finally understands what I do. This war is over.

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