Chapter 164: A single sentence.
Alex.
I desperately needed to look into Ella’s eyes and speak to her, just the two of us.
A chaotic storm of questions dragged through my mind, spinning out of control.
Why did she do this to me?
Why would she go this far?
I stared at her, wondering if this brutal move was just a twisted form of punishment. Maybe she wanted to break me completely so that, once I learned my lesson, she could finally step back to my side where she belonged.
Honestly, the exact moment Philip had called me over the phone and broken the news, the ground beneath my feet felt like it had dissolved into nothing.
My chest had tightened so hard I couldn’t breathe, watching my entire life collapse into a heap of ruin.
What have I done?
The realization had hit me like a physical blow, and I knew instantly, with terrifying certainty, that everything was over.
I had been so blind. I had willingly signed over 35% of the company’s shares to Ella, thinking of it as a standard alimony agreement, never realizing it would leave my own hands holding a pathetic, powerless 5%.
A strange, conflicting wave of misery and hope had battled inside me. I was completely devastated that the absolute managerial right to the company was slipping through my fingers.
Yet, a small, stubborn part of me felt a sick sense of relief. At least this meant Ella would be here. I would get to see her face regularly in these hallways, and surely, over time, I could use those moments to repair the shattered pieces between us.
I was still deeply trapped in the suffocating web of my own thoughts when Ella’s clear voice suddenly sliced through the air, delivering the brutal announcement to the rest of the room.
"Alpha Blake!" The sharp voice of an elder board member snapped my head up. He was leaning forward, his hands pressed flat against the mahogany table, his brow furrowed deep with shock. "Is this true? Is what she saying the truth?"
Instantly, the quiet room erupted into a buzzing hive of noise.
Low murmurs and sharp whispers burst out across the table as executives leaned toward one another, their eyes darting wildly between me and the woman sitting in my chair.
Ella, on the other hand, looked like she was relaxing in a garden. She calmly shifted her weight, crossing one smooth leg over the other. She placed her hands flat on the polished wood of the table, completely untroubled by the chaos she had just unleashed. She tilted her chin high into the air, looking down at everyone with the cool, unbothered grace of a true ruler.
"Mr. Blake," a female board member called out from the far end of the table, her tapping pen suddenly stopping. She stared directly at me, her eyes demanding answers. "We need a response from you right now."
I lowered my head, my chin nearly touching my chest as the weight of the room pressed down on me. I squeezed my eyes shut and sucked in a long, shaky breath, trying to steady the tremble in my voice.
"Yes," I said, the word dragging out slowly, heavy and hollow. "She is now the owner of the Bloodfang Group."
The moment the admission left my mouth, the room fell into a suffocating silence.
Every single pair of eyes around the massive table locked onto me, burning holes into my skin.
My hands gripped the edges of my thighs so hard my knuckles turned white. In that exact second, I desperately wished the floorboards would crack open and swallow me whole, hiding me from the judgment in the room.
Ella had stripped me bare. She had systematically taken every single thing I had ever worked for, leaving me with absolutely nothing.
What do I do now?
My mind spun in a frantic, useless circle.
How am I supposed to walk through the packs, or even look my peers in the eye, while carrying this thick stigma and public humiliation?
Slowly, painfully, I forced my head up to look at her. Ella sat there, her face glowing with a bright, victorious energy that made my stomach churn. She looked completely happy, untroubled by the wreckage she had caused.
How could she look so much like an entirely different person?
I stared at her, trying to find a trace of the woman I used to know. In the brief span of just six weeks—six weeks since the day I had harshly pushed her out of my life—she had transformed completely. I looked at the sharp, commanding woman sitting at the head of the table, and I realized with a pang of dread that I truly could not recognize her anymore.
Ella cleared her throat, a small, crisp sound that cut through the tension. She lifted her hand and gently tapped her knuckles against the polished wood of the table.
The subtle sound worked like magic; instantly, the remaining whispers died down, and every board member sat up straight, waiting.
"As the majority shareholder of this company, I am making a compulsory, non-negotiable decision," she began, her voice smooth and entirely calm. "The name Bloodfang Group will no longer exist." She paused, letting the shocking words hang in the air for a heartbeat before she gracefully pushed herself up from the executive chair, and standing at her full height, she looked down at the room. "From this very moment forward, this establishment is the Copper Group."
My entire body froze. The blood in my veins turned to ice.
How could she do this?
I stared at her, my mouth slightly open, waiting for her to laugh, waiting for her to say it was all a cruel joke. She couldn’t be serious.
This company wasn’t just a business; it was an ancestral inheritance passed down through generations of my bloodline.
How could she just wipe away our family name and dissolve our legacy with a single sentence?