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Paul was shocked when she said this. The rest of them were knocked back on their heels.
    Greg had the presence of mind to close his mouth after his jaw had dropped. Marie blushed and looked down at her notes and the other three followed suit. Chloe continued before they could regroup from that particular set of visuals she'd conjured up for them.
    "And I've got plenty of time and energy to spend on you guys. There will be a wrongful termination lawsuit, I can promise you that, but it's only the beginning, just the tip of the iceberg. Because you see, Paul here's a major stockholder in this company. He's vested 8.5% of it, which certainly gives him standing to protest any kind of financial mismanagement. And from what Paul tells me, there's a fair amount of that going on around here."

    CHAPTER 4
    20
    Chloe paused to deal her files out around the table. There was one for each of the other four founders and one for her. Marie didn't receive anything. "Plus there are issues of corporate money spent on personal perks and sexist and homophobic language creating a hostile work environment. Is it really appropriate to use bandwidth and disk drive space to download pornography? Same for illegally downloaded songs, in violation of various copyright laws and exposing the company to a massive lawsuit by the Recording Industry of America."
    All of them but Frank were now looking in the files Chloe had passed out. He didn't even bother to touch his.
    "You really might want to look in there," said Chloe. "It's got nothing to do with all those songs you download." Frank smiled without humor and opened the file.
    As they read what was in the files, Jerry and Evan began to visibly blanche. Frank's smirk disappeared, replaced with concentration and anger. Chloe continued, "We all know that there's a lot going on here that shouldn't be. And we all know that there's some things that are better kept quiet."
    Marie, who hadn't seen the materials in any of the folders, spoke up. "I think we need to wrap this meeting up.
    I'd like to talk with my clients and we all need a chance to cool down."
    "I think your clients would like to continue this meeting right here and now," said Chloe. "Get this whole thing sorted out as quickly as possible. That way we can all get on with our quirky, secretive, sometimes perverted little lives."
    The four other board members were all ashen faced. Evan just kind of nodded. Frank was on the verge of exploding in anger, but he was probably afraid that it would only make things worse for him. Jerry had stood up and was now whispering in Greg's ear. Jerry always knew when the ship was sinking, thought Paul. He was the first to give in.
    "Marie," said Greg after listening to Jerry for a minute. "Could you step out for a minute?"
    The lawyer was shocked. This had to be way beyond weird for her, and unlike any meeting she'd ever been to.
    "I don't think that's a good idea, Greg. You should stop now and give me a chance to look into this. Find out some more about what's really going on here."
    "Yeah," said Chloe, "Let's give everybody a chance to find out a little more about what's really going on here." She smiled cheerfully.
    "Please, Marie, I can handle it from here," said Greg, looking down at the table in front of him. He was angry too, which surprised Paul. He'd seen Greg frustrated and annoyed, but now the first-time CEO seemed to actually seethe with rage. It was kind of scary, but also sort of funny. He was the wild card, though. Greg had enough "fuck you" money to call their bluff. He would only give in under pressure from the other three.
    Marie started to protest but then seemed to realize that there was something going on in the room that she was missing. She gathered her briefcase and laptop and walked out the door. Jerry was still next to Greg and they were whispering back and forth. Once the door had closed behind Marie, Chloe started up again.
    "As you guys can see, I've got the goods on all of you. There's