Chapter 8 - THE PROXY
The deletion log should have felt like a victory.
Instead, Grace’s next discovery made me sit down.
Damon had not invented the board vote from nothing.
Dad’s proxy was real.
His signature was real.
The dates were real.
“What exactly did you give him?” I asked.
Dad stared at the document.
“A limited proxy for routine matters.”
Grace pointed at a clause.
“Routine matters unless an urgent event threatens continuity of management.”
I looked at Dad.
“You signed that?”
He rubbed his forehead.
“Damon said the bank required someone stateside while I was abroad.”
“Did you read it?”
“Yes.”
“Then why is that language there?”
“Because I trusted him not to manufacture an emergency.”
That sentence landed between us.
Trust.
Damon had weaponized everyone’s.
Grace kept reading.
The proxy could be revoked.
Immediately.
Dad signed the revocation.
Grace transmitted it to the company secretary, outside counsel, and every director.
For six minutes, we believed the morning vote was dead.
Then the company secretary called.
Damon had already used the proxy at 3:40 that afternoon to submit the emergency resolution.
Under the bylaws, revoking the proxy prevented future actions but did not automatically erase actions already taken.
The board still had to meet.
“We attend,” I said.
Grace looked at my knee.
“You should be examined first.”
“I’m not letting Damon walk into that room with a story about my health while I hide at home.”
Dad nodded.
“You won’t be alone.”
I looked at him.
“Neither will you.”
That surprised him.
He had been treating the upcoming hearing and the board meeting as battles he needed to fight for me.
I could not let him.
Damon’s entire story depended on portraying me as someone who needed men to decide what happened next.
“I speak for myself tomorrow.”
Dad nodded slowly.
“Okay.”
Grace’s phone rang.
The security provider.
She listened, then put the call on speaker.
The deleted footage could not be restored locally.
But our service plan included temporary cloud buffering before local deletion.
There might be a copy.
“Might?” I asked.
The technician explained that the buffer was overwritten on a rolling schedule.
If the relevant segment existed, we needed to preserve it immediately.
Grace requested a litigation hold.
The technician confirmed.
Then his tone changed.
“There’s another issue.”
“What?”
“Someone attempted a second deletion six minutes ago.”
We all looked toward the dark guesthouse.
Damon and Lacey had already left.
May you like
Yet somebody was still inside the property network trying to destroy evidence.
📖 Lacey’s guesthouse connection no longer proved she acted alone, because someone remained inside our system after she and Damon had driven away. 👇
