chair.
He had known my mother for twenty-seven years.
“Are you safe?”
“Yes.”
“Is Daniel coming back?”
“I don’t know.”
“He won’t be entering the offices.”
Daniel’s building access had been suspended.
His company email credentials were preserved and restricted under
counsel’s direction.
Nobody was deleting evidence.
Nobody was improvising revenge.
We were protecting the company.
PART 9
Daniel had never held controlling ownership in Sterling Global.
That was the part he hated.
When we married, he presented himself as supportive.
He said he admired what my mother and I had built.
Over time, admiration changed.
First into advice.
Then criticism.
Then entitlement.
He began referring to Sterling Global as “our company.”
At dinners, he introduced himself as part of executive leadership.
He was not.
PART 10
I had given him a consulting role three years earlier.
That decision haunted me.
Daniel had access to strategy meetings and selected financial
