My ex’s new wife stormed into my recently b:uried dad’s house and shouted, “Start packing!” I let her talk… until she made the mistake that would ruin her

The paper inside the red folder was cold beneath my touch. I slowly flipped open the cover. The top document was a corporate organizational chart, but the names at the top weren't Miller or Vance.

Prominently displayed in bold, black lettering was a single corporate name: Blackwood Capital Holdings.

"Blackwood?" Kyle repeated, leaning over my shoulder to look at the document. "That's Marcus Blackwood's private equity firm. Why would Marcus be involved in this? He was Dad’s business partner thirty years ago."

"Thirty years ago, Marcus Blackwood tried to bankrupt your father during the initial launch of Vance Enterprises," Penelope explained, taking a seat at the table. "Your father caught him skimming off the construction contracts and ousted him from the board. Marcus swore he would ruin the Vance name before he died."

I stared at the name. I remembered Marcus Blackwood from my childhood. He was a tall, sinister man with silver hair and a silver-headed cane who used to visit our house late at night, shouting at my father in the study while my mother hid Kyle and me upstairs.

"Tabitha didn't stumble into Calvin’s life by accident," Penelope revealed. "Our private investigators confirmed that Tabitha was on Blackwood’s corporate payroll two full years before she took the executive assistant job at Vance Enterprises. She was planted there."

The blood in my veins turned to ice. "She was a plant... Calvin wasn't just cheating on me. He was being used as an entry point to dismantle my father's entire life."

"Precisely," Penelope nodded. "Blackwood fed Tabitha the financial strategies to manipulate Calvin. Calvin was blinded by his own ego. He thought he was playing master strategist, but he was merely opening the doors from the inside. Blackwood’s goal was simple: use Tabitha to orchestrate a complete legal takeover of Vance Enterprises upon Everett’s death, sell off its assets for pennies on the dollar to Blackwood Capital, and reduce the Vance family to poverty."

"And what happens now that Tabitha and Calvin are arrested?" Kyle asked, his voice dark.

"Blackwood isn't a fool," Penelope replied. "He kept his hands clean of the immediate fraud. The money trail to Tabitha was routed through four different offshore accounts in Panama. Legally, he has plausible deniability regarding Calvin and Tabitha’s actions."

"So he walks away scot-free?" I asked, anger flaring within me.

"Not quite," Penelope smiled thinly. "Because your father knew Marcus better than anyone. Everett left a poison pill hidden inside Vance Enterprises’ financial structure. But to activate it, Paige, you have to assume total control of the executive board as the chief executive officer. Today."

"Me?" I shook my head, stepping back from the table. "Penelope, I haven't stepped foot in a corporate boardroom in over ten years. I run a botanical preservation firm. I don't know how to fight a billionaire corporate raider like Marcus Blackwood."

"You have your father's blood, Paige," Kyle said, placing a warm, supportive hand on my shoulder. "And you have his mind. You handled Tabitha today without flinching. You can do this."

"Your father left a detailed blueprint, Paige," Penelope added, opening a blue binder filled with hand-written notes in my father's sharp, flowing cursive. "He wrote this while he was in the hospital. Page by page, step by step. He anticipated every move Marcus Blackwood would make. He prepared the defense. But he needed a leader he could trust completely to carry it out."

I looked down at my father’s handwriting. I could almost hear his voice speaking to me, echoing from the pages: A garden isn't built by sitting back and letting the weeds take over, Paige. You pull them out by the roots, no matter how hard you have to dig.

"When is the emergency board meeting?" I asked, my voice hardening with new resolve.

"Tomorrow morning at nine o'clock," Penelope answered. "Marcus Blackwood already owns twenty-three percent of the non-voting shares through secondary proxies. He will attempt to force an emergency buyout the moment news of Calvin’s arrest hits the press. He’ll argue that the company is unstable and must be liquidated."

"Then we don't give him the chance," I said, leaning over the desk and picking up the pen. "Call the board members. Tell them Everett Vance’s heir will be presiding over the meeting tomorrow morning."

"And what about Calvin?" Kyle asked. "His lawyer is already attempting to post bail."

"Let him try," I said coldly. "Penelope, file an emergency injunction against Calvin's bail application using the offshore account records. Keep him behind bars where he belongs."

I walked toward the window, looking out over the rain-soaked garden. The white rosebushes were dripping with clear droplets, standing tall against the grey sky. Tabitha had threatened to tear them out, to destroy everything my father had built.

She had failed. Calvin had failed. And tomorrow, Marcus Blackwood would learn that the Vance family was far from broken.

"Kyle," I said without turning around. "Get the legal team together. We're going to work through the night."