Chapter 17: Adrian Moves the Deadline

At two on Friday afternoon, Adrian reaches for his emergency motion in the courthouse hallway, and I pull it out of his hand first.

The clerk stamped it twenty minutes ago.

He filed it while I was turning down the board's packet.

"Why does the judge have to hear this today?" I ask.

His eyes drop to the red emergency stamp, then come back to my face.

"Lena, this is a procedural measure. The company cannot remain without direction while the court reviews the identification issue."

"You can stop calling it an identification issue. I am standing here."

Camille waits by the windows in her cream coat, one hand under her stomach.

She came in separately.

She has not looked at him since the steps.

I turn to the second page.

His sworn timeline is stapled behind it.

"The emergency clause in our governance binder runs ten days from a founder's incapacity," I say.

"You declared me dead ten days ago. The window closes at five today."

"That is a coincidence of the calendar."

"You are asking the court to call my control unresolved before five o'clock."

"It is unresolved."

"I am standing here," I say again.

The clerk behind the service window has stopped sorting papers.

Camille looks from him to the pages in my hand.

"What does it do?" she asks.

"What happens at five?"

"It protects the company," Adrian says.

"Answer her," I say.

He lowers his voice.

"It keeps operations stable until the court finishes its review."

"Whose shares change?" Camille asks.

"No one's permanently."

"That is not what I asked."

He rubs the edge of his legal pad until the corner softens.

"The share structure may be adjusted temporarily."

"Whose?"

He looks at me.

"Lena's, under the circumstances."

Camille's hand leaves her stomach.

I hold the motion out to her.

Adrian puts his palm on it.

"You do not need to read a court filing."

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Declared Me Dead on Tuesday, So I Walked Into Court on Friday from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.