Arthur answered on the second ring.
“Cassidy?” he said, his tone instantly alert. Arthur Vale, Executive Vice President of Legal, did not waste words. He knew better than anyone what my name meant inside Morrison Global, even if the family sitting around me had chosen to forget.
I stared at Brendan while water continued to drip from my hair. “Arthur,” I said, “activate Protocol Seven.”
The room changed.
Diane’s smirk weakened. Jessica lowered her glass. Brendan’s eyes narrowed, searching my face for the punchline he desperately needed to exist.
Arthur was silent for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice had dropped. “Cassidy, if I do that, the Morrisons could lose everything. Are you certain?”
Brendan pushed back from the table. “What is Protocol Seven?”
I did not look away from him.
Protocol Seven was not a bluff. It was the clause I had drafted during the divorce, the one designed to protect the company from reckless executive abuse
Chapter 4: The Empire Freezes
“Do it,” I said. “Now.”
I ended the call and placed the phone gently on the table.
For five seconds, the silence was almost beautiful.
Then the first vibration came. A low hum against the wood. Brendan glanced down. His phone lit up with a board notification. Then Jessica’s phone followed. Then Diane’s. Around the room, screens flashed like warning lights on a sinking ship.
Their faces changed one by one.
First confusion. Then disbelief. Then the pale, sickly realization that this was not embarrassment. This was consequence.
Protocol Seven triggered an immediate freeze on executive assets, a forensic audit of all department spending, and a complete lockout of the Morrison family from the corporate infrastructure they had treated like a private inheritance.
Brendan grabbed his phone with shaking fingers. “What is this?” he demanded. “What did you do?”
I stood slowly, the wet fabric of my dress clinging to me as water trailed across their perfect floor
