Chapter 3 - The Mask Crumbles on Stage
Panic rippled through the front rows of the ballroom. Several guests stood up from their seats, craning their necks to get a better look at the stage. Brandon tried to speak, but the words slurred together into a harsh, unintelligible growl. Instead of stepping down from the podium as his body betrayed him, a wave of bitter, paranoid irritation washed over him.
He slammed his fist against the wooden podium, his eyes wide and bloodshot.
“You think that’s funny?” he shouted into the microphone, his voice cracking violently as he pointed a trembling, blue-stained finger directly toward our table.
I sat frozen, my expression blank. I hadn't laughed. Nobody in the room had laughed.
Lawrence rose slowly from his seat at the head table, his imposing frame casting a long shadow across the carpet. His voice cut through the mounting chaos like a knife.
“Brandon,” our grandfather commanded, his tone dropping to a dangerous, icy register. “Step down from that stage immediately.”
Brandon ignored him entirely, completely lost in a manic haze of paranoia and the physical shock of the substance.
“No, actually—you know what? This is perfect,” Brandon yelled, his voice echoing off the vaulted ceilings. He began pacing wildly across the stage, stumbling over his own formal shoes. “I’ve spent a year watching everybody in this room pretend she’s ready to take over!”
Lawrence’s expression hardened into granite. The veins in his temples throbbed. “Ready for what?” he demanded, stepping closer to the stairs.
“For your chair!” Brandon shrieked, spitting the words out like venom. “Everyone acts like she’s some kind of corporate visionary, but she’s a fraud!”
I felt Christian shift beside me, preparing to stand and intervene, but I held my ground. The CEO competition was an internal matter known only to the board, but Brandon was airing our family's dirt in front of three hundred witnesses at my wedding reception. There was no turning back now.
Lawrence reached the bottom of the stage steps, his fists clenched at his sides. “Enough! Get off the stage right now, Brandon.”
“She gets praised for marketing numbers that I could improve with one single report!” Brandon raged, his chest heaving as the blue tint spread further across his neck.
That specific sentence hit me like a physical blow.
One report.
Weeks earlier, during the height of the quarterly evaluations, I had stumbled upon severe discrepancies in a routine financial performance packet circulated to senior leadership. At first glance, the numbers didn't look wildly fraudulent—they were subtle enough to be easily dismissed as rounding errors. But when I dug deeper, I realized my department’s performance metrics had been artificially deflated, making our division look sluggish, while another division—overseen directly by Brandon—was propped up to look like a powerhouse.
When I formally requested clarification, the finance department eventually reissued the corrected report, murmuring vague excuses about "consolidation software glitches."
Brandon had cornered me in the executive washroom hallway the very next day.
“You really requested a formal reissue over a few decimal percentages?” he had sneered.
“They were wrong,” I had replied.
“They were minor.”
“They were wrong.”
At the time, I hadn't possessed definitive proof that he was the one who personally manipulated the numbers. I treated it strictly as a corporate controls failure and moved on.
Now, standing on stage at my wedding with blue staining his mouth, Brandon was screaming about that exact report to the entire company board.
Lawrence stopped dead in his tracks. The raw fury in our grandfather's eyes vanished for a split second, replaced by a terrifying, analytical coldness.
“What report?” Lawrence asked softly, the quiet menace in his voice carrying effortlessly across the silent room.
Brandon gave a harsh, hysterical laugh, his knees buckling slightly as he leaned against the podium for support. “That stupid quarterly packet. The one she threw a tantrum over like a child.”
In the front row, I saw the lead corporate finance compliance officer visibly pale, lowering her water glass with a shaking hand. Several board members seated nearby turned their heads sharply toward the stage, their expressions turning from shock to utter disbelief.
Brandon, completely consumed by the delirium of whatever substance he had ingested, still didn't seem to comprehend the catastrophic confession he was broadcasting to the world.
May you like
Lawrence took a slow step up the stairs. “What did you change?”
Brandon blinked heavily, his eyes unfocused. He shrugged clumsily. “I cleaned up the story. Made it presentable.”
