Page 195 of Broken
“Yes.”
“Where’s Artemis?” he asked.
“His assistant said he left at lunch and she doesn’t expect him back for a few hours. Mel dialed in. Do you think she’ll warn him?”
Mel—Artemis’s daughter—headed up Armstrong’s west coast division.
“Hard to say,” Prescott replied.
“While you’re meeting with the board, I’ll loop in one of our in-house attorneys,” Francis said.
They entered the conference room. The six people sitting around the table grew silent, as did the eight online. All eyes on him.
He sat at the head. “Thanks for being here on such short notice.”
After Francis connected his laptop to the video projector, she left.
Steeling his spine, Prescott began. “As you know, Artemis hired TopCon to rebrand an outdated product line, and the board approved the million-dollar-plus project.”
“The sensitive skincare line,” added one of the board members.
“That’s the one,” Prescott replied. “After doing a little digging, I found out that TopCon isn’t a real company. It’s a DBA owned by Artemis. He’s paying the consultant for work she’s not doing.” He pulled up Virginia’s business registration website to show that Artemis owned TopCon.
“Our accounting director, Hershel Jones, has joined us today. Hershel has the paper trail of invoices from TopCon.”
“Good afternoon,” Hershel said. “Let me review those with you.”
As Hershel went through the invoices, Prescott regarded everyone in the room, along with the members online. The press would pounce on this news, the story would go viral. He’d instruct the PR department to compose a brief statement expressing their regret in the matter, the company’s commitment to excellence, and their promise to customers that the issue was a personal one and had nothing to do with the quality of the brands the public has come to expect. And they’d announce the acting CEO.
Prescott stilled.Fuck. Fuck me.
That’s gonna be me.
As COO, he oversaw all departments. More importantly, he was the heir apparent. Of Artemis’s two children, only his daughter worked for Armstrong. Years ago, she’d made it clear she loved living on the west coast, and wouldn’t return to HQ.
Time to do what has to be done.
He’d stepped up for Ethan. He’d do it for his family’s legacy.
“This is very disappointing,” said one of the board members.
“And criminal,” added another. “Armstrong built a company, one brand at a time… and they built it on trust.”
“How do we deal with this?” asked an online board member.
“Artemis will pay back what he stole and be gone by the end of the day,” Prescott replied, his tone filled with confidence.
“We need to vote Artemis out,” said one of the board members in the room.
“Okay, then,” Prescott said. “By show of hands, those in favor of Artemis Armstrong staying on as CEO of Armstrong Enterprises.”
No hands went up, not even Artemis’s daughter, Mel.
“Let the record show no hands were raised,” said one of the members.
“Those in favor of dismissing Artemis Armstrong as CEO of Armstrong Enterprises, effective immediately,” Prescott said.
Every hand—in person and on the call—went up.
