That quorum rule was a stroke of luck for Raphael.Because of that, he needed to get fifty-one percent of the voting shares in the room, not over half of all the shares that existed. If it had been the other way around, absent shares would have effectively counted for Valerian.
Looking around the room discomforted Raphael. Many of the people who were making eye contact with him were some of the lower-ranking family members whose stock portfolioswould be among the smaller portions.
The vote was going to be close, but when he did the math, Raphael thought he would win by about two percent.
Raphael bided his time, waiting as his father and the rest of the committee worked their way down the agenda.
He calculated and recalculated his odds of success.
Even if Raphael were wrong about two people, he could still win this, depending on whothey were. Many of the other members of his family had expressed concerns over the years about the direction of the bank, in that it was sinking further into crime and corruption rather than resting on the bedrock of the high-quality banking services upon which Raphael’s great-grandfather had built Geneva Trust.
When Raphael had approached his cousin Ory, sidling into her office at the bank,his tactic had been to ask her, “Can you imagine what Grandfather Mirabaud would say if he could see how much of our business is tied up with organized crime syndicates?”
Ory had shifted in her seat, uncomfortable, and told him in a low monotone, “I imagine Grandfather is spinning in his grave every night. What we did in the past was bad enough, taking advantage of laws that were in effect, butactively financing crime is worse.”
When Raphael looked around the room and took the measure of his many cousins and other relatives on the governing board, he read their body language as if he were back at the Golden Horseshoe Casino, playing poker.
The ones who knew that the coup was about to be staged sat a little straighter, moved a little more stiffly, and glanced down at their agenda moreoften than they would have otherwise. They had a secret. It wasn’t a good secret. They were steeling themselves for battle.
They would probably come in on his side.
Those who didn’t know—his father Valerian, a few of Valerian’s toadies, and some of the older members of the board—were behaving more normally. Raphael had been very careful about whom he told, lest Valerian circumvent Raphael’splan.
Raphael had been sure that Ory was in his corner, but she wasn’t looking at him now. He didn’t like her body language. Her slouched posture reeked of low cards and getting ready to fold.
The meeting droned on. Raphael contributed numbers to a conversation about future oil prices and international diplomacy, and his allies seemed satisfied with them.
Good.He needed to prove that he couldlead. No one knew about his MBA from the London Business School, so he needed to show that he understood business without revealing that.
The meeting crawled down the agenda.
Raphael ticked off the second-to-last item as the discussion ended.
Showtime.
He shuffled the papers under his agenda to bring his notes to the top. He scooted his chair back, preparing to stand.
The door at the endof the room opened.
Six people walked in, all wearing suits, and took their places in the empty chairs at the end of the table, shaking hands with others who stood and leaned toward them.
Raphael recognized them. They were his aunts and uncles and third cousins, all of them from the previous generation and exceedingly conservative in their views of how the bank should be run. Océane had updatedRaphael on their positions from a list, and none of them were good for him.
Valerian raised his hand and greeted them. “Thank you for coming, Kateline, Tours, and everyone. You’re just in time, I think.”
Valerian turned his head, his silver hair shining in the sunlight from the skylight above the table, and asked, “Are there any other motions to be made at this meeting?”
He stared directlyat Raphael, his direct gaze and prim smile daring Raphael to put forth his vote of no-confidence.
With that, Raphael knew that he didn’t have the votes.
He adjusted his chair closer to the table and capped his pen, looking bored and glancing at the door like he had better places to go and people to see.
Valerian said, “I thought not. Let’s adjourn for coffee and pastries, shall we?”
Afterward,Raphael huddled in Bastien’s office with him and Océane.
“We’ll need to try some other way,” Bastien said. “Perhaps an all-member meeting or proxy vote.”
“It’s always the old people who don’t attend the meetings,” Océane said. “If anything, we should call an emergency meeting and come in right at the fifteen members to declare a quorum, fifteen people whom we want there and none of the olderguys.”
“We should rethink this,” Raphael said. “We need to plan this operation so that either Outcome A is a winner or Outcome B is a winner. This was incredibly risky, and he almost took us out. If he’d known you two were in on it, he would’ve stripped you of your stock to prevent it from happening.”
Bastien nodded. “That’s how I got my extra five percent. Ulrich tried to take over just afteryou left, and Valerian won. He always wins.”
“No,” Raphael said. “He’s always won in the past. We’ll figure out a way to stop this.”
If taking over the bank wasn’t going to work, Raphael would have to consider other options.
