Lucien Vale
The press conference was a masterpiece of manipulation.
I stood at the podium in the Vale Corporation ballroom, cameras flashing like lightning, reporters packed shoulder-to-shoulder, and felt my father's hand clamp down on my shoulder like a vice. He was smiling. The warm, patriarchal smile that had graced magazine covers for forty years. The smile that made shareholders feel safe and competitors feel small.
"My son has made mistakes," Atticus said, voice carrying perfect gravity. "He's young. Passionate. And like his mother before him, he sometimes lets that passion cloud his judgment."
I kept my face blank. Inside, I was screaming.
"But I know my son," he continued, squeezing hard enough to bruise. "The allegations are not only false, they are a deliberate attack on the
