A/N: This chapter is different in the sense that it's the first one that separates from the main plot. It's really a side story and will later (or very soon) be Jake's issue that he has to deal with. Conversely Rose's issue is the break in into her quarters and the attempted Coup of her as Huntsmistress. The next chapter will be similar expect it's the antagonist to Rose that will be introduced. You're going to meet the main antagonist to Jake in this chapter. Now it's filled with a bunch of corporate mumbo-jumbo, so I'm warning you, expect a lot of it.

Chapter 20 – Attempted Hostile Takeovers

Maxwell Stoops was on a mission.

That morning, after he had told the board of Jake's decision to move the Corporate World Headquarters to New York, half of them were in an open state of revolt. There were fourteen members of the International and National General Broadcasting Corporate Board of Directors. Twelve of them were standard members, millionaires and billionaires who had purchased enough shares to be elected to the Board. The last two were Jake and himself, they served as Chairman and Co-Chairman respectively.

Six of the standard members of the Board had openly told him their plans to liquidate their stock and leave the Company. That was bad. If they liquidated their stock instead of selling it hand to hand with another person, that meant that they were going to dump it onto the stock market and inflate everything from the Stock Price to Stock Demand and he couldn't allow that to happen. Eventually everything that was inflated would have to deflate and when INGB's stock deflated, they would have some trouble.

Those six rebellious members had some $29 Billion Dollars invested in the company and he didn't want to imagine what would happen if the company lost that all at once.

So he was offering them three choices:

The first was the easiest one to get done. Jake and he would buy the stock at face value and order the member to leave. No questions asked and no hard feelings. The odds of doing this were astronomical, Max new most of these men and women and he knew that they were going to put up a fight.

The second was a little harder. He and Jake held eighty percent of voting power on the Board for emergency situations like this. That meant that if they agreed on something, they could overrule the other twelve members. If the rebellious members of the Board didn't want to go, Jake and he would forcibly remove their stock and buy them out. He knew that they would have to go this route with at least two of the members.

The third was the drastic, but he and his army of attorneys were willing to go there if need be. Jake and he would proceed to buy the stock from the rebellious members and enact the confidentiality clause in their contracts, less they risk a lawsuit, and if they didn't do that, he and Jake would remove them from the board and ban them from Share Holders conventions, making their existing stock worthless.

If they did the first one, they'd get their money and be happy. The second would give them their money back but they'd painfully be removed. The third involved them getting into a massive legal war with the world's most powerful publishing and broadcasting international conglomerate. They'd be complete fools to go up against the company.

It made Max chuckle, he couldn't wait.

Gripping the thick stack of files that he had made for the meeting, he marched quickly into the Board Room. He had been authorized to work on Jake's behalf. Jake only attended these meetings once a month, so for all intents and purposes he acted as Chairman more than Jake did and he knew how to handle these people. Don't get him wrong, Jake knew how to handle them too, but he had spent nearly seven years with the Board of Directors and he could wrangle them, "Ladies and Gentleman of the Board, thank you for coming to us all quickly. Now, I'm aware of the complaints that you have made clear to the Chairman and I, and we've prepared a response. In these folders are copies of your contracts that you signed when you were brought onto this board. The second thing is a legal gag order, barring you from saying anything to the media that happens in this room or we will sue your pants off. The last thing is your list of choices."

He looked quickly to all twelve of their faces, each of them contorted into shock as their eyes danced over the words, "As you can see, if you want to leave, Mr. Long and I will personally buy your stock back at face value and you can leave peacefully. The other two options will involve canceling out your stock and kicking you our or buying the stock back at a lesser value. And keep in mind, we do have an army of lawyers to fight back against your attacks and we are prepared to sue you, if you cause trouble."

"Mr. Long wouldn't be so foolish," Donald Wilson, the senior member of the Board said with a smirk as he closed the folder. Max sighed inwardly, Donald were would be the problem would be. He had personally directed the best group of Lawyers in the company's army of hundreds of them to have their eyes trained on Donald and to be ready to pounce on him.

"You wouldn't be so foolish to oppose this Donald, might I remind you that you are only a Board Member, you have no role or physical control over this company," Max said, walking from his place at the head of the table and making his way to walk behind them all and around the table, "I will remind all of you that none of you have a physical role, that's the policy that Mr. Long and I approved of not allowing executives to be on this Board of Directors. It was conceived because of events like this."

He smiled at that tension, "Rest assured, if any of you attempt to make a move on us, either Mr. Long or myself, we have given orders to direct all of the legal and public relations resources of every single company that INGB owns or has influence over to completely and utterly destroy you."

"That's funny," Donald mocked the boy, Donald was in his early seventies and Max was only in his thirties, so it was appropriate to say that, "Because I have a surprise for you, five of my fellow board members have elected to take your first option before you delivered it to us. Expect they won't be selling the stock to you or Mr. Long. They will be selling it to me. That means by tomorrow afternoon, I will be the second most powerful man-…"

Max growled and leaned forward, "You wouldn't dare."

"I would dare, it is already done," Donald shrugged, "Well when the market opens tomorrow, it will be done. Oh, and I wouldn't be going and revoking the large amount of stock, it's worth about $29 Billion, it would be a massive hit."

He was right. It appeared that by tomorrow, he wouldn't be in these meetings anymore. He would lose his job as Co-Chairman, but he would still be CFO of the company and he would still be able to get one back over on the son of a bitch. But that's what wasn't concerning him.

It was the fact that Jake had only $19 Billion worth of stock in the company, which meant that Jake would lose his title of Chairman of the Board to Don. This wouldn't be pretty. Not at all and he had to tell Jake now and formulate what they were going to do. Gritting his teeth, he glared at the five traitors members of the board, "You five know what this means? You are all in television and entertainment and I can pretty much fucking guarantee you that you will never be able to broadcast or publish or produce in most of the civilized world ever again. You are all pretty much fucked."

He growled and turned to the other six members who were scowling openly in disgust at the other five, "You six, I need to speak with you all, otherwise, we are adjourned until the next meeting."

"WHAT!" Jake screamed, pulling at his hair tightly.

With his scream, all of the heads in the dining room behind him turned to him in shock and surprise. When Maxwell had called him, he had a feeling that it was going to be bad and oh man was he right. Donald Wilson had convinced five of the Board Members to sell their shares to him, which gave him complete control of the Board. This was not good, not good at all. By tomorrow afternoon, Donald Wilson would have a controlling stake in INGB.

"He backed us into a corner," Maxwell sighed, "But the good news, you only need eleven Billion to top him. The other six members of the Board have offered to sell you enough of their shares to give you back controlling interest, as well as my position as Co-Chairman. But it will take a few days and in that time, we need to make sure that we have operating control."

Operating Control was a word that Jake and he had invented that meant that in the event that they were outbid in control of the Board of Directors, that they would retain all controls of company operations, "Alright, you're the CFO, you restrict his access to all financial records and bank accounts, assets and networths. While you're at it, you keep my office locked up, and you restrict my files as Chairman under the clause of it being Financial."

"He might have the crown, but he doesn't have the keys to the castle," Max realized what they were going to do. Donald might own half of the house, but Jake and he were going to lock the doors and swallow the keys to the doors that he owned until they could get control back, "Anything else?"

He turned to his family and he didn't care if he was irate, or angry, or for that matter cursing, "I want every single thing that those five fuckers, who gave their shares to Donald, made, off of the air right now. I want all of their contracts torn up, I want you to cancel every single project and I want you to ban them from INGB Owned Networks and Publishing Max presses and websites. I don't want to hear hell or high water about them. They want to fuck with me, I'll ruin them. Do you think that you can do that?"

"I'll go set their contracts on fire," Max smiled, "I thought you should know."

"Thank you for calling me," Jake reaffirmed, "Just make sure you give my thanks to the other members who are willing to sell me some of their shares to take back the Board. I really appreciate this, you know that Max?"

"Relax, I just want one thing," Max chuckled.

"And what is that? A raise?" Jake asked sarcastically.

"Just make me Co-Chairman when you get the Board Back." Max chuckled.

"Will do," Jake sighed, he felt his heart beating wildly and he could have sworn that what he was feeling felt like a stroke, "I'll talk to you in the morning."

He hung up his phone and slipped it's back into his pocket. When she slowly leaned against the doorframe of the kitchen, he sighed as Rose's voice suddenly perked up, "What's going on Jake?"

"Uh," He turned and smiled at he, "I think about to have a stroke. I just found out that five members of my Board of Directors just sold their shares to one of my Board Members. $29 Billion Dollars worth and-…"

"And you're going to have a stroke?" Haley questioned with a raised eyebrow.

Jake nodded and looked at his sister, "Yeah, I think I will, because for the moment, I only have $19 Billion worth of shares. Care to tell them what that means Trevor?"

"It means that this person now has controlling ownership of the company and he is no longer Chairman of the Board," Trevor parroted quietly.

Jake nodded, "Which means, that I'm going to be very cunning for the next few days to somehow get my hands on $11 Billion worth of shares to get control back. Which means that I won't have a lot of free time as it were."