From the leather armchair in her study, Eleanora Hawthorne watched the `Starlight Serenade` broadcast on a large, wall-mounted screen. The commercial for a luxury sedan ended, replaced by one for a fast-food chain. The juxtaposition was vulgar.
Her phone chimed softly on the mahogany desk beside her. She glanced at the screen. Caspian’s message.
The stage is set.
Eleanora did not text back. She picked up her desk phone and dialed a number she knew by heart. It was not for her lawyer, nor for Marcus Thorne. It was for the Chairman of the Board of Hawthorne Industries.
He answered on the first ring. “Eleanora.”
Her tone was ice. There was no preamble. “A story is breaking in the next ten minutes involving Caspian, The Finch Foundation, and criminal fraud. At 10:05 PM, the company will issue the statement I sent you this afternoon. It will condemn the fraud, pledge our full cooperation with the authorities, and announce a fund to repay the victims. There will be no further comment.”
She paused, letting the weight of the directive settle. “Am I understood?”
There was a moment of shocked silence on the other end. Then, a quiet, “Yes, Eleanora. Understood.”
She hung up without another word. This was not about saving her grandson. Caspian had made his bed of lies, and he would suffer the consequences. This was about saving the institution. It was a swift, surgical move to cauterize the wound, to sever the rot of his personal disgrace from the legacy of the family business.
Her gaze fell upon a silver-framed photograph on her desk. Caspian and Lyra, on their wedding day. Young, smiling. So much potential, all of it squandered, all of it burned away by arrogance and deceit.
A flicker of profound sorrow crossed her features, a brief, painful grief for the future that had been destroyed.
Then, just as quickly, it was gone. Her expression hardened back into a mask of iron resolve. The house had to be protected.
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