Chapter 860
Furthermore, Lawrence had spent a fortune and handed out endless favors to desperately secure votes, while Owen hadn’t lifted a finger.
He simply disdained the effort. Anyone whose loyalty could be bought with a quick payout was nothing but a spineless opportunist.
Yet, there were always those shortsighted enough to only care about immediate profits.
Owen swept his predatory gaze across the shareholders, causing several of them to flinch and quickly avert their eyes.
He didn’t need these fickle board members anyway.
Solflare Entertainment was so much better. The shareholder structure was
incredibly simple-his Mira was the majority owner, he was the second, and Master Ellis was the third.
The only other stakes were Harvey Rivers’ minor friendship shares, and Hank Whitlock holding a small piece of the gaming division.
Other than that, there was no one else.
Even the minor partners in the mobile OS and gaming branches merely took a cut of the profits without having any real say in the decision-making process.
Solflare Entertainment was entirely Mira’s domain; no one dared to second-guess her.
It was nothing like this bloated corporation p>
It was incredibly frustrating.
Finally, Owen glanced at Leonard. Lawrence and Richard could never have
controlled the boardroom dynamics this effectively.
Most of the shareholders wouldn’t have given them the time of day.
He realized instantly that this entire tie was a deliberate power play orchestrated by the old man to put him in his place.
In that moment, Owen truly wanted to walk away.
He could make millions of dollars anywhere else.
Wasn’t it a thousand times better to focus entirely on running Solflare Entertainment
with his Mira? Not to mention he already owned Vanguard Realty.
But then he remembered Mira’s words. “You have to step into the fire to claim the prize. Are you really going to let them squander the Lance empire p>
He couldn’t leave his mother’s murder unavenged.
At the very end of the meeting, Leonard cast his deciding vote for Owen, giving him exactly one vote more than Lawrence.
The old man was sending a clear
message: Owen could only sit in the CEO chair because Leonard allowed
it. If Ceonard was displeased Owen’s reight would be over content
It was a twisted display of human complexity.
Before Owen returned, Leonard had suffered endlessly through his son’s incompetence and Lawrence’s reckless blunders, desperately wanting Owen back.
Now that Owen was back, Leonard was terrified he would destroy Richard and Lawrence, constantly testing him to keep him in line.
Owen had finally secured the CEO position, but that tie-breaking vote came with a catch.
Lawrence had stepped down as CEO and surrendered his primary authority, but Leonard immediately appointed him as Vice President.
It was a deliberate move to make Owen’s life miserable.
Still, as far as Owen was concerned, his objective was complete.
If his grandfather wanted to keep Lawrence right under his nose, then he couldn’t complain when Owen utterly dismantled him.
If they really did split the company and operate separately as suggested earlier, Lawrence might have enjoyed a brief period of freedom.
Under that scenario, Owen would have secured his own divisions first, waited for Lawrence to ruin the rest, and then swooped in to take it all.
The current setup was just a different path to the exact same outcome.
Wrapping things up, Owen delivered a few perfunctory remarks and adjourned the meeting.
Just as he was stepping out of the boardroom, Leonard called out to him.
“Come by the estate this afternoon. We need to talk p>
Owen gave a curt nod and walked out.
Meanwhile, the moment Mira finished her noon classes, she asked Jax Weaver to bring over the gifts she had prepared for her classmates.
The items came in their original, bulky packaging and were quite heavy. There was no way Mira could have lugged them all to campus that morning.
Stepping out of the academic building, Jillian Lowe practically bounced over to her. “Mira, look at this p>
Mira glanced casually at the screen, her eyes immediately widening. The front page of every major news platform was plastered with photos of Owen and the Larice Group.