MAISIE
The icy water from the shower does little to shock the dread out of my system. I trade last night's glamour for my daily armor: a crisp, white Theory blouse, tailored black Joseph trousers, and my trusty handbag. Each piece is a layer of defense.
My black Range Rover Autobiography is waiting in the garage of my Tribeca building. I slide into the driver's seat, the familiar scent of lemon and leather doing nothing to calm the knot in my stomach.
The drive to the Rory Robotics headquarters in the Meatpacking District is a blur of honking yellow cabs and blinding morning sun. My knuckles are white on the steering wheel.
I push through the glass doors of our office, the usual buzz of the open workspace feeling louder, more aggressive today. I don't stop to chat. I beeline for my corner office.
And of course, Lena is already there. She's not at her own desk down the hall. She's perched on the edge of my custom walnut desk, her CFO title feeling like a suggestion she never took seriously. She's holding a single, stark white file folder.
Her face is unnaturally pale.
"It came by special courier," she says, her voice quiet, all traces of her usual sunshine gone. "About an hour ago."
I drop my bag onto the sleek, modern sofa. "From?"
She doesn't need to answer. The grim set of her mouth says it all. She just holds the folder out to me.
I take it. It's heavy. Ominously so.
"You know," I say, forcing a lightness into my voice that I don't feel. I tap the folder against my palm. "For a Chief Financial Officer, you spend a shocking amount of time in my office acting like my personal assistant. Maybe I should rethink the position. Add 'fetching my coffee' to the job description."
It's our usual banter, but the joke falls flat. It hangs in the air between us, brittle and hollow.
Lena doesn't smile. Her eyes are wide, worried. "Just open it, Maisie."
The bravado I walked in with evaporates. My heart is a frantic drum against my ribs. I walk around my desk, the folder feeling like it weighs a thousand pounds. I lower myself into my chair, the smooth Italian leather groaning softly.
I look at Lena one more time. She just gives me a single, nervous nod.
I take a shallow breath.
And I open the file.
My eyes scan the crisp, letterhead at the top—Kage Capital—and a cold, sharp dread, colder than any shower, instantly replaces the last of my hangover haze.
What the fuck?
It's not a backdoor proposal. It's a declaration of war, printed on heavy, expensive stock.
"...all-cash offer for a controlling fifty-one percent stake..."
My breath hitches. Fifty-one percent. He doesn't want a partner. He wants to own me. To erase me.
"...fifteen percent premium over the current market price..."
A "generous" offer. The condescension is a physical slap. He's pricing my father's life's work like it's a distressed asset at a fire sale.
"...a promising but financially unstable and technologically risky enterprise..."
My jaw clenches so tight I hear my teeth grind. Unstable. Risky. He's using his own sabotage, the data he stole, as the justification for his attack.
"...lack of experienced leadership at the helm."
The final, perfectly aimed blow. It's not about the company. It's about me. He's telling the whole world I'm a child playing CEO.
I did call him a child yesterday.
He's fucking mocking me.
"He leaked it," I whisper, the words tasting like ash. My head snaps up to Lena. "Did he leak this?"
Her face, pale and grim, is all the answer I need. "Bloomberg alert hit my phone five minutes ago. The Wall Street Journal has it, too."
The room tilts. This isn't a skirmish. This isn't a boardroom spat. He didn't just send this to me. He sent it to the entire world.
He's painting a target on my back for every vulture and shareholder to see. He's trying to force my hand, to panic me into selling.
A hot, violent fury erupts in my chest, burning away the last traces of dread. It's a clean, focused inferno.
I slam the folder down on my desk. The sharp crack echoes in the quiet office.
"That smug, fucking bastard," I hiss, my voice low and shaking with a rage so pure it's almost calm.
Lena flinches. "Maisie—"
"He wants a rescue mission?" I stand up, my hands flat on the desk, leaning forward. "He wants to talk about my lack of experience? My technological risks?"
I look at her, and I know my eyes are blazing. There's no fear in them now. Only fire.
"This isn't a takeover attempt, Lena." I tap the offending file with one sharp finger. "This is him drawing a line in the sand. He thinks this is a checkmate. He thinks I'll fold."
A slow, cold smile spreads across my face. It feels foreign and dangerous.
"Okay," I say, my voice dropping to a deadly whisper. "Game on."
I pick up the file again, not with trembling hands, but with a steady, deliberate grip. I look at the perfect, polite, corporate words meant to dismantle my life.
This isn't a small fight anymore. It's total war.
The cold fury is still crystallizing in my veins when my phone vibrates on the desk. Then it buzzes again. And again.
It doesn't stop.
The screen lights up with a rapid-fire list of names. Henderson from Silver Lake. The board members. Our lead counsel. My stomach plummets.
Across from me, Lena's phone erupts in a synchronized chorus, blaring some obnoxious pop song she probably set for her mom.
She fumbles for it, her eyes wide as she reads the screen. "Holy mother of God," she breathes, her voice thin with panic. "It's… it's everyone. All at once."
The buzzing is a swarm of angry hornets. It's the sound of my company crumbling in real-time.
"He really did it," I whisper. Then, the shock ignites. "That fucking son of a bitch!"
"Maisie, what do we—?"
"Lena!" I snap, my voice cutting through the noise. "Get PR on the line. Now. I want every single department head in the main boardroom in ten minutes. Legal, Comms, Finance, everyone. I don't care if they're in their pajamas. Get them in there. Stats!"
She jumps, nodding frantically, her fingers already flying across her phone's screen.
I grab my own still-buzzing phone. I see a notification from the Bloomberg app. I don't even need to open it. I can imagine the headline. Kage Capital Bids for Troubled Rory Robotics.
"Smug, condescending, parasitic piece of shit," I hiss, pacing behind my desk. "Thinks he can just… just air-drop this bomb and watch me run around like a headless chicken?"
I stop, planting my hands on the desk again, the cool wood doing nothing to douse the fire inside.
"He doesn't get to do this. He doesn't get to define my company. He doesn't get to define me."
Lena looks up from her phone, her face a mask of stress. "They're scrambling, but they're coming. What's the play?"
I look at her, my best friend, my CFO who looks like she's about to be sick. I take a deep, sharp breath, forcing the chaos into a tight, hard ball in my chest.
"The play," I say, my voice dropping to a low, steady register, "is that we go to war. And we are not going to lose."