Chapter 321: [4.139] How to Dismantle an Empire

The silence that followed felt like the moment after a gunshot.

"Holy shit," Cassidy whispered.

"Indeed," Marcus agreed. "Now, as for this afternoon’s meeting. I suggest we arrive slightly early and set up in the conference room. When your mother walks in expecting to intimidate a young man into leaving her daughters alone, she’ll instead find herself facing a full legal team ready to challenge every decision she’s made for the past four years."

"She’ll fight," Vivienne said. "She’ll drag it out, tie it up in courts for years."

"Possibly," Marcus acknowledged. "But I don’t think she will. Your mother is pragmatic above all else. When she realizes she can’t win, she’ll negotiate. And that’s when you’ll have her."

"What do we want?" Harlow asked softly. "I mean, if we can get her to negotiate, what are we asking for?"

The sisters looked at each other. Then, as if they’d practiced it, they all turned to look at me.

"Don’t," I said.

"You’re part of this," Sabrina said. "You helped us get here. You deserve a voice."

"This is your family. Your company. Your decision."

"And you’re dating all of us," Cassidy pointed out. "Which makes you family by association. Stop being noble and tell us what you think."

I looked around the table. At Felix, grinning like this was the best entertainment he’d had in years. At Marcus Beaumont and his team of lawyers, waiting patiently. At four women who’d been raised to compete and were choosing to stand together instead.

"You want to know what I think?" I asked.

They nodded.

"I think you’re asking the wrong question."

The words hung in the air for a moment. I could feel everyone’s attention sharpen, the lawyers pausing with their pens hovering over their legal pads.

"It’s not about what you want from Camille," I continued. "It’s about what you want for yourselves."

I leaned back in my chair, letting the thought settle before I went on.

"Your father left you a company. That’s true. But more than that, he left you a choice. A test, maybe, though I don’t think he meant it that way. You can fight over it the way she wants you to. Tear each other apart competing for something that was always meant to be shared." I looked at each of them in turn. Sabrina’s unreadable violet eyes. Vivienne’s carefully neutral expression. Cassidy’s restless energy. Harlow’s soft, hopeful gaze. "Or you can prove that you’re nothing like her. That the four of you together can build something better than any of you could alone."

Silence.

"That’s very idealistic," Vivienne said finally. Her tone was measured, careful. But she didn’t sound dismissive. She sounded like she was actually turning the idea over in her mind, examining it from different angles the way she probably examined fabric samples and quarterly reports.

"It’s also practical," I countered. "Think about it. Four CEOs with equal power means nobody can make major decisions without consensus. It forces you to communicate. To collaborate. To actually listen to each other instead of maneuvering for position." I spread my hands. "Your mother rules through control and division. She keeps people isolated, dependent on her approval, competing for scraps of attention. You could rule through unity instead. Through trust."

Sabrina was nodding slowly, her expression still guarded but something flickering behind those heavy-lidded eyes. "Four equal votes," she said, as if testing the words. "Major decisions require majority approval. Day-to-day operations divided by expertise and interest rather than hierarchy."

"I handle design and creative direction," Vivienne said, and I could hear the shift in her voice. She wasn’t just entertaining a hypothetical anymore. She was planning. Strategizing. This was Vivienne in her element. "The fashion houses, the couture lines, the aesthetic vision of the brand."

"I take the sports and activewear divisions," Cassidy added, sitting up straighter. For once she wasn’t lounging or sprawling or taking up space just to annoy someone. She was engaged. "Valentine Athletics. The performance lines. Maybe expand into actual sports sponsorships."

"Youth marketing and V-Girl would be mine," Harlow said softly. A small smile was tugging at her lips now, genuine rather than performative. "Social media presence. The younger demographics. Community engagement."

"And I handle strategy and research," Sabrina finished. "Long-term planning. Market analysis. Identifying opportunities before our competitors do."

The lawyers were scribbling furiously. Marcus Beaumont had a look on his face that I recognized from high-stakes poker games. The look of someone who’d just realized the pot was bigger than they thought.

"And Mother?" Harlow asked. The question came out quiet, almost tentative. Like she was afraid of the answer.

Sabrina’s expression didn’t change. But her voice dropped several degrees.

"Mother," she said, "can either accept a generous severance package and an advisory role with no real power. A comfortable retirement with her reputation intact and her lifestyle maintained." She paused. "Or she can fight us in court and lose everything."

"She won’t go quietly," Cassidy warned. There was no hostility in it, just flat acknowledgment of fact. "You know that, right? She’ll dig in. She’ll find angles we haven’t thought of. She’ll make this as ugly as possible."

"No," Sabrina agreed. "She won’t go quietly. But she will go." Her eyes were cold now, sharp as broken glass. "Because the alternative is public exposure of everything she’s done. The changed will. The manipulation. The inheritance clause she weaponized against her own children. The way she turned her daughters into competitors while their father was dying in a hospital bed."

"That’s leverage," Marcus said approvingly. "Camille Valentine built her reputation on family values and the Valentine legacy. The moment it becomes public knowledge that she undermined her late husband’s wishes and pitted her daughters against each other, that reputation crumbles. She won’t risk it."

"So we offer her a choice," Vivienne summarized. "Step down gracefully with her dignity intact, or fight and lose everything including her public image."

"Exactly," Marcus confirmed. "Though I’d phrase it more diplomatically when we actually make the offer."

Felix had been quiet through all of this, which was unusual enough that I’d been keeping track of it. Now he spoke up.

"There’s one more thing you should consider."

We all looked at him.

"Your mother isn’t just the CEO of Valentine Holdings. She’s the face of the brand. The magazines, the interviews, the charity galas. She’s spent twenty years building herself into an icon. If you force her out completely, there will be questions. Speculation. Potentially damaging press."

"What are you suggesting?" Sabrina asked.

"Give her the advisory role, but make it real," Felix said. "She consults on major decisions, attends important events, maintains her public presence. She gets to save face and keep some measure of dignity. In exchange, she signs over operational control and agrees never to interfere with how you four run the company."

"That’s... actually smart," Cassidy said, sounding surprised.

"I have my moments," Felix replied with a grin.

Marcus was nodding. "It’s a solid compromise. Gives her an out that doesn’t look like a total defeat. Makes the transition appear planned rather than forced. Reduces the risk of her fighting just out of spite."

"We’d have to trust her not to undermine us," Harlow pointed out.

"That’s where the paperwork comes in," Ms. Chen said, patting a stack of documents. "We draft an agreement that’s ironclad. She violates it, she loses everything including the advisory position and any remaining shares. We make the cost of betrayal so high that even Camille Valentine won’t risk it."

The sisters exchanged looks. Some kind of silent communication passed between them, the kind that only came from sharing the same womb and the same trauma.

"We’re agreed?" Sabrina asked.

Three nods.

"Then let’s go to war," Cassidy said.