I don’t react.
I just watch him for another beat, then say with the kind of low, deliberate cruelty that makes men sweat under their tailored suits:
“You misunderstand. I don’t need to touch her.”
I let that hang.
Because what I’ve done isn’t physical, yet. What I’ve done is worse.
“I could unravel Sinclair Media within six months,” I continue, tone calm, surgical. “I have the vendors. The paper trails. The board members who are already mine, they just don’t know it yet. I can collapse your Foundation in half the time. One leaked audit. One anonymous tip. One well-placed whisper, and the press starts circling like fucking vultures.”
His shoulders go rigid. I see it, his mind calculating the odds. Weighing cost against consequence.
“And what would you get out of that?” he bites. “If you’re so invested, why burn it down?”
“Because,” I say softly, “if you don’t play this exactly the way I want, if you don’t give me what I want, then you don’t deserve it.”
He scoffs, a humorless sound. “You’d destroy an entire company. A philanthropic foundation. My daughter’s work.”
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking I care about her work more than I care about mine.”
I lean back, slow and measured, and pin him with a stare that has brought stronger men than him to their knees.
“If I wanted a donation, I’d write a check. But I don’t want donations, Charles. I want dominion. And I’ve already started building it. You either get on your knees and offer me the crown now, or I take it from the ashes of your empire.”
He stares at me, still silent.
Still calculating.
But he knows.
This isn’t a threat. It’s a promise.
Camille may be beloved. Camille may be his daughter, his legacy, the one clean thing in a rotted bloodline.
But to me?
She’s leverage. She’s an entry point. A breach.
And if Charles won’t surrender her division, I’ll take everything it touches.
Sinclair Media.The Foundation.His name.His legacy.Her.
I rise from my chair.
“You don’t have to answer now,” I say. “But you will.”
Charles stands too, his face carved from stone, fury flickering just behind the mask. “And if I say no?”
I meet his gaze, unwavering.
“Then I bury both.”
A pause.
“Sinclair Media will go under in scandal. Your Foundation will be gutted by audits, litigation, and headlines that stain Camille’s name until she’s nothing more than a cautionary tale. The daughter who failed. The heiress who didn’t know.”
His mouth opens slightly, but I don’t let him speak.
