Chapter 10 - Jessica Vance Takes the Chair
My first week as interim CEO was brutal.
Rumors spread.
Employees panicked.
Lenders called.
Investors demanded answers.
I refused to lie.
I also refused to dramatize facts we had not established.
We disclosed the liquidity pressure, announced an independent review, froze related-party transactions, and created direct oversight for major payments.
Then I called our largest lenders myself.
Some hung up unconvinced.
Others gave us time.
I sold two nonessential development positions.
Canceled three vanity projects Luca had loved.
Protected payroll.
Protected our core developments.
And for the first time, employees who had known me for years began seeing my name at the top of company communications.
One afternoon, my assistant entered.
“Chloe Ruiz is downstairs.”
Chloe had become an unexpected source of evidence, but she wasn’t my friend.
I agreed to see her.
She placed the keys to the penthouse on my desk.
“I’m leaving.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere Luca isn’t.”
She had cooperated fully with investigators.
She also admitted her own failures without excuses.
Before leaving, she stopped.
“I hated you before I met you.”
“Why?”
“Because he needed me to.”
That sentence stayed with me.
Luca had built separate versions of reality for each of us.
But Chloe had one final piece of information.
Richard Hale had approached her.
That morning.
May you like
And he wanted her to testify that I had known about Northstar all along.
The fight had changed again.
