Chapter 13 - The Boardroom Ghost
Z
We walked back into the deposition room not as victims, but as an execution squad. I sat down, my spine perfectly straight, the panic completely erased by the sheer, terrifying confidence radiating from the man beside me.
Marcus was still smirking. Ms. Sterling looked impatient.
"Are we ready to proceed?" Ms. Sterling asked, clicking her pen. "Ms. Alvarez, I remind you that you are under oath. Did you or did you not use Ethan Alvarez's intellectual property to build the Bellamy campaign without proper disclosure?"
Before Harrison could object, Adrian leaned forward, resting his forearms on the mahogany table. The movement was casual, but it carried the weight of a predator settling in for a kill.
"Ms. Sterling," Adrian said smoothly. "I am going to save us all a great deal of time and billable hours. My partner did not steal intellectual property. Because she couldn't."
Ms. Sterling narrowed her eyes. "Mr. Kane, you are not the one being deposed right now. But if you are admitting that the concepts were not hers—"
"I am stating a legal fact," Adrian interrupted, his voice dropping into that chilling, quiet register. He reached into his leather portfolio and withdrew a single, elegantly bound legal document. He slid it across the table. It stopped precisely in front of Ms. Sterling. "That is a bill of sale, dated ten years ago. Executed between my former real estate holding company and Mr. Ethan Alvarez."
I stared at the document, my heart pounding a frantic rhythm. Ten years ago. That was when Ethan took the photos of the warehouse.
Ms. Sterling picked up the document, her eyes scanning the dense legal text. Marcus leaned over to look, his smirk beginning to falter.
"What is this?" Marcus demanded.
"That," Adrian said, his gaze fixed on Marcus like a laser, "is the exclusive, perpetual copyright assignment for the entire Echoes of Empty Spaces collection. Ethan Alvarez refused a cash bonus for his work, so instead, I purchased the exclusive commercial rights to the entire portfolio to ensure he was properly compensated for saving my firm."
The silence in the room was absolute. A pin dropping would have sounded like a gunshot.
"Therefore," Adrian continued, his voice ringing with devastating finality in the quiet room, "the conceptual framework of those photographs did not belong to Ethan Alvarez to be 'stolen' by his widow. They did not belong to the public domain. And they certainly did not belong to your agency, Marcus."
Adrian leaned back in his chair, adjusting his cuffs with meticulous precision. "They belonged to me. Privately. And as the sole owner of that intellectual property, I explicitly licensed the thematic use of that collection to Kane & Alvarez, LLC, on the day of our incorporation."
Ms. Sterling’s face drained of color. She looked from the document to Adrian, then slowly turned to glare at Marcus. Marcus looked as though the floor had just opened up and swallowed him.
"This... this is a fabrication," Marcus stammered, pointing a shaking finger at the document. "You generated this to cover your tracks!"
"It is fully notarized and registered with the U.S. Copyright Office ten years prior to this dispute," our lawyer, Harrison, stated cheerfully, finally joining the fray. "A simple database search will confirm its authenticity. Your entire case regarding the Bellamy campaign is built on the alleged theft of a concept that my client, Mr. Kane, legally owned the entire time."
Ms. Sterling abruptly stood up, shoving the photographs back into her briefcase. "We need to confer with our client. Immediately."
"Take all the time you need," Adrian said, not moving a muscle. "However, you should know that my legal team filed a counter-suit an hour ago in federal court. Defamation, corporate espionage, and tortious interference. We are seeking damages that will bankrupt your new agency before it opens its doors. We will also be seeking personal damages from you, Marcus, for the libelous leaks to the press regarding Ms. Alvarez and her daughter."
Marcus opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. He looked broken, utterly dismantled by a man who had played chess while he was playing checkers.
"This deposition is over," Ms. Sterling snapped, grabbing Marcus by the arm and practically dragging him out of the room.
When the heavy door clicked shut behind them, Harrison let out a low whistle, packing up his legal pads. "Mr. Kane, I have been practicing corporate law for thirty years. That was the most surgical decapitation I have ever witnessed."
"Send the settlement demands to their office by noon," Adrian instructed, his voice tight. "I want a public retraction, a full dismissal with prejudice, and I want Marcus Vance barred from operating in this state for a decade."
"Consider it done," Harrison said, quickly exiting the room to make the calls.
We were alone.
I sat frozen in my chair, staring at the spot where Marcus had been sitting. My mind was reeling, trying to process the magnitude of what had just happened. Adrian had owned the copyrights for ten years. He had held onto Ethan's art, protected it, and then used it as a shield to save me.
I turned to look at him. The ruthless CEO mask had vanished completely. He looked exhausted, his shoulders slumped slightly, his eyes searching my face for a reaction.
"You owned them," I whispered, the reality finally sinking in. "You bought his collection."
"I knew they were brilliant," Adrian said quietly. "And I knew he would never take a handout. It was the only way I could pay him what he was truly worth."
"And you used them to save me today."
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"I would use every asset I possess to save you, Sofia," he said, his voice rough with emotion. He reached across the table, his hand covering mine. "I told you. I don't let my best people get pushed off the swings."
I looked at his hand, large and warm over mine. The ghost of my past had just been laid to rest by the man who held my future. I didn't pull away. Instead, I turned my hand over, lacing my fingers tightly through his.
