Grace's Mercedes arrived at Arland Group's headquarters, but it was not the chairwoman inside, it was her assistant. Sitting on the backseat, the seatbelt securely running across her chest, sinking into the chest of her modest-toned professional attire, the ponytailed black-haired woman's head was low, her gaze calm, focused on the screen of the tablet in her hand.
At that moment, she received a message, and her phone rang with the sound of a notification.
"Appointment processed and now effective."
Taking her eyes off the tablet, Leyna picked up her phone, read the simple message with no fluctuation on her face, then turned back to her tablet. Closing the digital copy of what Alex had signed and which she had been reviewing again, she opened her mailbox where an email was already ready, only waiting to be sent, and with a simple touch, she sent it to all the prearranged addresses after one last check.
The object of the mail was as simple and understated as the confirmation message from earlier, reading:
"Notification of administrative transition."
The calm greyish-blue eyes of the ponytailed woman blinked with a hint of satisfaction at the neutral tone that belied the storm the mail would raise.
Leyna closed her mailbox, and turned off the tablet. As the Mercedes stopped in the underground parking lot of the Group, she came out and went straight to the elevator reserved for the chairperson of the Group, and went straight to the top floor, ready to avoid everyone while preparing for the coming transition.
As she casually slung her handbag on her shoulder, the door of the lift closed with a soft sound, akin to the announcement for the calm to be ready to get shattered wherever the notification that had been sent arrived.
The two sides of the door stagnated, then met, erasing the last slit through which the interior of the elevator had been visible.
*Ding~*
As the elevator climbed up, elsewhere, in an upscale residential area in another part of the city, a phone chimed with a notification. The breakfast at the table upon which the phone was sitting paused, and a large hand picked it up. The owner of the hand glimpsed at the message he just received, and his face, already stern by nature, hardened.
The change was subtle, but Julene caught it. More curious than surprised, she asked, composed:
"Did something happen?"
Marten kept his eyes on the screen of his phone for a while longer, then calmly put it down. His expression returned to normal, and he replied in a calm voice:
"Grace is having health issues. She will be resting at home for a while."
"Oh? But that is not all, is it?"
It could have been good news or just a surprising piece of information. But for her husband not to react as he should have, that meant there was more to the matter, something that, even with his composure, was not easy to swallow right away.
Julene looked at Marten, waiting for the answer. Marten returned his focus to the food. Cutting a bite with his knife, he brought it to his mouth with the fork, calmly chewed, and only spoke again when he swallowed it. He did not look up, but what he said made his wife freeze:
"She has pushed Alex forward as the interim chairman. The change has been confirmed already."
After the shock and the surprise came the anger. Julene's indignation was written all over her face as she gripped her fork tight. In the tense silence that followed as Marten continued eating, she had to take more than just one deep breath to regain her composure and calm down. And that was already praiseworthy, as that seat that quietly changed hands, even if maybe only temporarily, had been the goal of her and her husband for years already, decades even.
After another deep breath followed by a long exhale, she looked at her husband's composed expression, then forced out with a similar but steely calm:
"Nothing is set in stone yet. I will not bring my meeting with Esther forward, as that will only make us seem desperate, but I will strive to conclude the talks with her and get an agreement sooner. You can still be the chairman, no, you will be the chairman."
Marten didn't reply, and Julene said no more. She only took another breath, then returned to her breakfast in the atmosphere that had lost its warm calm.
Elsewhere, Alex's second uncle, the third son of his grandfather, glanced at the notification that just arrived in his mailbox, then smiled. It was not an uncle happy for his nephew, nor an uninterested, flat smile. If anything, the mysterious smile could be described as casual, and unsurprised.
Beside those two Lenners, all the other directors, including the high level executives of Arland Group, also received the notification, and each reacted differently. The most expressive of all among the directors was the thin, scheming-looking one with a barely concealed arrogance.
He frowned, then sneered, eye glinting with disdain, before he finally threw his phone aside. He went back to looking at the exposed thighs of the golf course cart girls hurrying around, a glass of whiskey on the table beside him and a cigar between the fingers of his hand resting on his knee.
It was still the early morning, and for him, it was not just the breeze that was enjoyable, life itself was too.
_ _ _
_ _ _
Looking down at his phone, Alex smiled mirthlessly at the mail he had received. Really, he was unable to feel happy.
He closed his mailbox, putting the notification of his prison term starting soon out of sight, thus out of mind. He was about to put the phone down when a news headline caught his eyes. He raised his eyebrows, opened the article, then smiled, truly this time, with obvious, amused interest.
Reading through the article, his smile grew deeper as he even ignored another news headline that appeared at the top of his screen, another article about him.
It was then that the soft, almost imperceptible sound of a door being opened came from the side, and he turned to find the sneaky head of blond hair peeking out from inside the guest room.
He paused, then his smile changed, welcoming as a host's, though not devoid of mocking irony:
"Hey, you are up?"