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I fucking adore her.

So I nod her way and pull out the chair at the end of the table for her.

I know some other owners will be surprised by this, but I don’t give a fuck.

I take the chair to her right, which handily hasn’t been taken up thanks to me standing right next to it the whole time.

The vice chair, the owner of the Montreal Dukes, is to my right, and he starts the meeting when everyone’s sitting and quiet.

A hush falls over the room.

Someone mutters, “Lets just vote.”

And the vice chair clears his throat and begins.

For a second I wonder if he’s going to start calling for a vote in my direction, and I don’t know how I’m going to avoid voting yet without raising suspicions, but he starts with the guy on his other side—the owner of the Seattle Mist.

Everything goes as planned, and I can tell they’re all expecting this to be one of many votes that will be separated by half an hour breaks where everyone tries to get just one person to vote for them. Like we’re choosing a fucking pope or the monarch of a league of pirate ships.

Everyone votes for themselves, and when I sneak a glance, I see Gabrielle is rolling her eyes and leaning back comfortably on her chair.

Of course she votes for herself as well.

And then it’s my turn. They’re all already tuned out, so I make sure my voice comes loud and crystal fucking clear.

“I vote for Gabrielle Darnell. Representative and owner of the Las Vegas Pirates.”

One moment of silence, and then beautiful, chaotic pandemonium. Some even stand and point at me while they shout that I can’t do that and that my vote can’t be counted.

But the vice chair stays quiet, having already tacked my vote into the sheet he has in front of him.

He only speaks when the shouts start to die down.

“The vote is final.” He stands and waits until everybody else sits back down. “According to the by-laws, Gabrielle Darnell is the chairwoman of the board of governors effective immediately.” He turns to her and nods like she’s actually a monarch now. “Congratulations.” Then he’s sitting again and everyone is back to screaming their stupid white heads off.

“Madam Chairwoman,” I shout over all the fucking noise, and the new title does make all these idiots quiet down at least a little. “May I have the floor?”

Gabrielle is still stunned, but a satisfied smile peeks through at her new title.

“You may,” she says like a queen. Good, she’s getting used to it.

I stand and start speaking as I walk to the other end of the long-ass table.

“I know everyone here expected the first item of this meeting to take a lot longer, so I know you’ve cleared your schedules. I prepared a presentation for you all.”

I start connecting my tablet to the TV but keep talking.

“Obviously, I’ve never been to one of these meetings before, and of course you all expected me to know nothing about how they worked, but dear ol’ Jim had a big mouth when he wanted to brag. At least with me. So I knew all you leeches were going to vote for yourselves and expected there to be a recess so you could all try and convince some other poor shmuck to vote for you as well. I hope you can all recalibrate and accept the new reality quickly.

“I voted for the only other person here who I trust, as is my right, and I want to present a few new clauses I think would have a positive impact on our great league and our players’ lives. I could explain my reasoning by talking about important shit that actually matters outside this room. Like ethics, human rights, or just basic fucking decency. But I know most of you bastards don’t actually care about any of those, so let me get your attention by talking about the one thing you do care about. Money.”

The presentation appears on the screen right then, and I’d pat myself on the back for the timing if I thought it was going to help my case with these assholes.

I know it won’t, but it’s still a nice touch.

“The world is changing, but one thing has always been true and most of you haven’t realized it.” I pause for pure fucking dramatic effect. “Who runs the world?” I ask, knowing none of these dinosaurs will get the reference, so I share a look with our new chairwoman.

“Women. The people who are in their lives and care about them will always root for them. You are all wealthy, powerful men. You probably have at least one woman in your life, whether it’s your wife, girlfriend, or misstress, your mother, sister, daughter, niece, whoever they are, I’m sure you’ve bribed or paid ungodly amounts of money at one point or another to make sure they can have something that makes them happy, to protect them, or to just make them smile.