Chapter 142: Any Objection?

The atmosphere inside Quin Records’ 14th-floor boardroom was suffocating.

Heavy tension hung in the air like thick smoke, cut only by the frantic clacking of tablets and the rising, panicked shouts of exhausted directors.

Across the long mahogany table, the board members were drowning in chaos, their faces pale as real-time ticker screens flashed red, tracking the catastrophic collapse of the company’s stock.

Fastine stood at the head of the table, her signature polished composure crumbling at the edges.

Disheveled hairs escaped her sleek bun, and her knuckles were white as she slammed both hands onto the polished wood.

"We are not filing for bankruptcy protection!" Fastine snapped, her voice tight and bordering on hysterical as she tried to rally the terrified room. "This is a temporary smear campaign! The media is sensationalizing a minor technical error at the venue! Quin Records is a multi-billion-dollar pillar of the music industry—we have the global distribution, we have the catalog, and we will bounce back by the third quarter!"

"Bounce back?!" one senior director yelled, throwing a stack of printed financial reports into the center of the table. "Fastine, three institutional funds just liquidated their entire positions! Our stock dropped 79% in under two hours! Board members are resigning live on cable news, and half our signed roster is emailing legal notices to terminate their contracts! You didn’t just fail to crush Ruby Vane—you handed her our entire audience on a silver platter!"

Beside Fastine, her personal assistant stood in utter silence, holding a sleek black leather folder close to her chest. Her face was completely unreadable, her eyes calm as she waited patiently for the precise, perfect second to drop her formal resignation letter. ℯℯ𝑙.

"We still hold the majority voting rights!" Fastine shouted back, her voice echoing off the floor-to-ceiling glass windows. "As long as this board holds the voting block, we dictate the company’s direction!"

CLICK.

The heavy double oak doors at the end of the boardroom swung open without warning.

Every single head turned instantly. Fastine froze mid-sentence, her eyes widening in absolute disbelief as I stepped smoothly into the high-stakes meeting, flanked by Chloe on my left and two towering security guards who held the doors open behind us. Dressed in a bespoke tailored suit, I walked into the room with an unbothered, absolute authority that instantly suffocated the noise in the room.

"What is the meaning of this?!" a panicked director shouted, springing up from his leather chair and pointing a finger at me. "Security! Who authorized an outsider into a private, high-level emergency board meeting?!"

"Get him out of here!" another voice yelled. "We are in the middle of a corporate crisis!"

Fastine stared at me, her mouth slightly open, a sickening mixture of shock, rage, and sudden terror washing over her pale face. "Ethan...?" she whispered, her voice cracking. "How... how did you even get up here?"

I didn’t answer right away. I casually pulled back an empty leather chair at the foot of the long table and sat down, leaning back comfortably and crossing one leg over the other, resting my hands on my lap.

Chloe stepped up right beside me, opening a thick white corporate ledger and resting her hand on it.

"You can stop shouting," I said softly, my voice smooth, cold, and utterly dominating the silent room. "And as for the security... they work for the owner of the building now."

Fastine’s chest heaved as she glared down the table. "You don’t own anything here! You might have pulled off a lucky concert trick across the street, but you have zero standing in Quin Records’ internal governance!"

A slow, lethal smirk spread across my face as I looked directly into her desperate eyes.

"As of seven minutes ago," I announced calmly, "my private firm executed a series of emergency block trades, acquiring the distressed holdings of three resigning institutional directors and two major private funds."

I gestured lightly toward Chloe, who tapped her screen, instantly beaming a verified financial document onto the boardroom’s massive central digital display.

"I now hold 55% of the total voting shares in Quin Records," I said, leaning forward slightly as the golden lighting of the room caught my eyes. "Which means I am not an outsider, Fastine. I am your majority owner."

The boardroom descended into total, dead silence. The directors stared up at the digital display in absolute horror, watching the legally binding equity breakdown confirm my 55% controlling stake.

Fastine stumbled back half a step, her hand clutching the edge of her chair as her face went completely ghost-white.

"That... that was you..." Fastine breathed, her voice barely a whisper as the sheer weight of her total defeat finally crashed down on her. "You bought us..."

"I bought you," I replied softly, my cold smirk widening as I looked around the room of trembling executives. "And now, it’s time to clean house."

---

A wave of audible gasps swept through the boardroom, followed by a sudden, heavy wave of breathless relief. The board members leaned back in their leather chairs, wiping cold sweat from their brows as the figure sank in.

One billion dollars in fresh capital injection meant Quin Records wasn’t just saved from liquidation—it was instantly resurrected into a financial leviathan.

"One... one billion?" the senior director stammered, his hands trembling as he stared at me. "Sir, with a capital injection of that scale, Quin Records could recover within weeks!"

"Hold your celebration," I said, my voice dropping an octave into an icy, unyielding tone that made the temperature in the room plunge. "I said I am willing to invest. I didn’t say there wouldn’t be conditions."

I signaled Chloe, who instantly tapped her tablet, updating the main digital display to reveal the master restructuring outline.

"Condition number one," I stated, resting my elbows on the mahogany table. "A total, absolute restructuring of every single artist contract under this roof. Effective immediately, every signed artist on Quin Records’ roster is laid off and their contracts are terminated."

"What?!" another director gasped, standing up so fast his chair rolled back. "All of them?! ColdZon? Our flagship talent?!"

"Especially ColdZon," I replied, without a shred of hesitation. "Her artificial career and manufactured image are dead weight. Furthermore, every single executive who enabled, supported, or authorized Fastine’s sabotage attempt against Ruby Vane is terminated without severance—starting with the head of logistics and production."

The executives involved went completely pale, their eyes darting around the room in absolute panic as they realized their careers in the music industry were finished.

"As for Fastine," I continued, turning my cold gaze to where she stood trembling at the head of the table. "You are stripped of your CEO title, removed from all operational power, and reduced to a quiet, powerless minority board member. You will sit in the back, keep your mouth shut, and watch how a real empire is run."

Fastine looked as if she had been slapped across the face, her hands gripping the edge of the table so hard her knuckles turned white, but she couldn’t utter a single word of protest. My 55% voting majority made every word I spoke absolute law.

"Sir... please," the senior director pleaded, sweating bullets as he looked at the screen. "If we lay off our entire roster and fire the management team... how will a record label even function?! We won’t have a single performing artist left!"

A slow, lethal smirk spread across my face as I leaned back in my chair.

"Simple," I murmured, crossing my hands smoothly. "Ruby Vane will sign with Quin Records—exclusively on my corporate terms. She will be the sole, supreme artist on the entire Quin Records roster."

The boardroom sat in stunned silence as the genius of the play settled into their minds.

I hadn’t just bought Quin Records. I had completely gutted its toxic foundation, eliminated its liabilities, stripped Fastine of her legacy, and turned the entire billion-dollar infrastructure into a private, high-powered vehicle built solely to serve Ruby’s global ascension.

"Any objections?" I asked smoothly, looking around the room of terrified executives.

Not a single hand went up.