Chapter 14 - The Serpent in the Boardroom
The following Tuesday, the downtown glass tower of the Sterling Financial Center reflected a slate-grey sky. Inside the top-floor executive boardroom, twenty high-ranking board members sat in suffocating silence around a table carved from a single slab of black obsidian.
At the head of the table sat Hector Sterling, a silver-haired septuagenarian with eyes as cold and predatory as a arctic wolf. Across from him, looking entirely out of place in her tailored navy pantsuit, sat Lucía Serrano-Miller, flanked by Arthur Vance.
Behind Lucía stood Marcos and Mateo, dressed in crisp white button-downs, their hands folded politely in front of them like innocent schoolboys.
"You brought children to a restructuring hearing, Mrs. Serrano," Hector Sterling said, his voice a low, gravelly rasp that commandingly cut through the hum of the air conditioning. "This is not a school board conference. This is a debt arbitration involving eight figures."
"My sons are the sole proprietors of the Serrano-Miller Intellectual Trust," Lucía replied evenly, her chin held high. "Every byte of data Álvaro Vance-Sterling attempted to mortgage to your firm originated from my late father’s mind and was completed by my sons. If you wish to discuss that intellectual property, you address all three of us."
A sneer danced on Hector’s withered lips. "Your sentimentality is quaint, Lucía. But the law is indifferent to your domestic melodrama. Álvaro took eighty-five million dollars from my syndicate. Under Section 14 of the master indenture, any technology derived from the initial research grant becomes property of Apex upon default. You won your public trial against a fool who couldn't keep his lies straight. But you are playing with Titans now."
He slid a leather folder across the obsidian table toward Lucía.
"Sign the assignment of rights. Hand over the root source code for Prometheus. In exchange, I will grant your family a five percent royalty pool. Enough to keep your clever boys in elite universities for the rest of their lives. Refuse... and I will freeze every asset your restitution fund secured before the market closes today."
The board members shifted, smiles of smug certainty spreading across their faces. They had crushed hundred-million-dollar tech startups for breakfast; a single mother and two teenagers were nothing more than a minor administrative nuisance.
Arthur Vance leaned forward to speak, but before he could utter a word of legal objection, Mateo let out a soft, melodic chuckle.
The room froze.
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"Did something amuse you, child?" Hector Sterling asked, his eyes narrowing into cold slits.
Mateo took a step forward, resting his small hands lightly on the edge of the million-dollar table. "You called Álvaro a fool, Mr. Sterling. But looking at this contract... I think the apple didn't fall very far from the tree."
