CHAPTER 2: THE LYCAN CHAIRMAN CALLS HER BLUFF

The glass conference room made privacy visible but incomplete. Guests could watch mouths move without hearing evidence. Lucian ordered the smart glass clouded only after counsel logged everyone inside, preventing either secrecy or spectacle from controlling the record.

The audit freeze did not stop ordinary pension benefits. Mara wrote that limitation into the order before Lucian signed. Retirees would receive checks, approved construction invoices could be paid through dual review, and only new transfers to disputed consultants were blocked.

Brent tried to portray the freeze as Mara gambling with workers' retirement. The pension trustee answered with current liquidity reports showing benefits funded for eighteen months. Mara released the relevant pages with personal information removed.

Lucian asked whether public disclosure might warn the shell companies. “They already know an audit exists,” Mara said. “What they do not know is which banks received preservation notices.”

Independent counsel sent those notices simultaneously. Accounts could not be emptied before dawn without leaving a trail.

Sophie requested a copy of her proxy and learned it allowed Brent to vote only named Harbor Crown shares, not control every financial account. His claim of general spousal authority had no contractual basis. She revoked the proxy prospectively while preserving past records for review.

Lucian did not rescue Mara from the silence.

He descended the balcony stairs, stopped beyond touching distance, and asked, “What assets support your proposal?”

Laughter moved through the gala. Mara had offered marriage; he demanded diligence.

“A voting block hidden inside Harbor Crown, evidence that Brent diverted Vale pension money, and a conflict structure preventing either of us from controlling the other.”

Lucian's expression changed at the word pension.

He led Mara, Sophie, Brent, and independent counsel into a glass conference room. Cameras remained outside.

Mara displayed transfer records. Vale's employee pension fund had invested forty million dollars in a secured waterfront note. Brent moved twelve million through project consultants and used it as the down payment on shares giving him operational control. Pension money had indirectly financed his takeover.

Brent called the transfers authorized development fees.

“Then show completed work,” Mara said.

The consultant addresses belonged to empty offices. Invoices reused the same engineering photograph. Approval came from Sophie's spousal proxy, signed two days after Brent took her phone and changed her account credentials.

Lucian asked Sophie whether she approved the transfer.

She looked at Brent before answering. “I signed what he told me protected the project.”

“Did you see the invoices?”

“No.”

Brent accused Mara of exploiting Sophie's anxiety. Lucian ordered an independent pension audit and froze the remaining draw.

“You cannot freeze my project,” Brent said.

“The fund can freeze its money.”

Mara then revealed her hidden block. Her father had issued worker participation units through a trust. Under a change-of-control clause, those units converted into voting shares if an outside developer acquired more than thirty percent without union consent. Brent's purchase had triggered conversion. Mara, as trustee, controlled the votes pending worker election.

Lucian called her marriage announcement reckless.

“It stopped Brent from removing me quietly,” she said.

“It also tied my name to yours before I agreed.”

“Correct. You may reject it publicly.”

He studied the evidence rather than her embarrassment. “A marriage between us would create standing to protect Sophie, consolidate enough votes to stop Brent's takeover, and survive his claim that you are a hostile outside trustee.”

“It would also look like revenge.”

“Some useful actions do.”

Lucian offered a one-year strategic marriage, fully disclosed. Separate property. Independent counsel. No sexual obligation. Mara would receive a Vale board seat tied to the pension recovery, not to being his wife.

Brent lunged to his feet. “She was my mate.”

Lucian's eyes turned silver. “Then your rejection removed the only fact that might have made that relevant.”

He slid the proposed term sheet toward Mara.

“One year,” he said. “Shall we negotiate?”

Lucian required Mara to identify the difference between suspicious transfers and proven theft. She answered without exaggeration. The money left the pension-controlled project account, reached consultants without visible work, and returned as Brent's acquisition capital. Beneficial ownership still required subpoenas.

“So you cannot yet prove he owned the consultants,” Lucian said.

“Correct. I can prove the fund received neither documented service nor an arm's-length review.”

Her willingness to define the limit persuaded him more than certainty would have.

Independent counsel separated Sophie from both men for a private interview. Mara insisted. A statement made beside an angry husband and protective father would be attacked as pressure regardless of truth.

Sophie returned with a written chronology. Brent controlled her devices, required approval for spending above five hundred dollars, and used her spousal proxy to vote shares. She did not yet call those acts abuse. The record did not require her to adopt a label before she was ready.

The pension trustee confirmed its investment covenant prohibited related-party fees without committee approval. No approval appeared in minutes. Brent produced an email consent from Sophie. Metadata showed it originated from his office computer while Sophie attended a charity event across town.

Lucian wanted Brent removed from the gala. Mara advised against it until server access was frozen. Public humiliation could send him directly to destroy records. Security quietly disabled administrative credentials and preserved laptops before asking anyone to leave.

Brent realized the room had shifted. He accused Mara of planning the confrontation for months.

“I planned to marry you,” she said. “You planned the fraud. Only one of us changed course tonight.”

The strategic marriage was Lucian's solution, not a romantic impulse. As his spouse, Mara would become a related party whose worker votes triggered heightened review of Brent's acquisition. As pension recovery director, she could obtain records without relying on Lucian's private favor.

Mara asked why he trusted her.

“I do not,” Lucian said. “I trust evidence, divided authority, and the fact that you corrected me when overstating the case.”

It was the best answer anyone had given her that night.