Chapter 10 - The Number That Made Grant Dangerous
Owen finally reconstructed Grant’s financial incentive.
It was larger than Mara imagined.
Mercer Strategic would receive an $18 million completion fee if Meridian closed.
Grant personally held options through a Blackmoor acquisition affiliate worth between $22 and $31 million depending on financing.
If he became CEO after closing, his compensation package added another potential $40 million over five years.
Mara stared at the spreadsheet.
“He was going to make almost seventy million dollars.”
“Potentially more.”
“And destroy a marriage for it.”
Owen looked at her.
“I doubt he thinks that is what he did.”
“What does he think?”
“That the marriage was already an asset relationship.”
The words hurt because Mara had wondered the same thing.
When had they stopped being husband and wife?
Before Vanessa?
Before Ellie?
Before Charles died?
Grant had once brought Mara coffee in bed because she hated mornings.
He had slept on the hospital floor after Ellie was born.
He had cried when they first heard their daughter’s heartbeat.
None of that had prevented this.
Good memories were not character witnesses.
Rebecca entered.
“Grant wants mediation.”
Mara laughed.
“No.”
Rebecca sat.
“You should hear the proposal.”
“Why?”
“Because refusing to hear it makes you look unreasonable.”
Mara sighed.
“Fine.”
Grant’s settlement proposal arrived that afternoon.
He would drop his request for sole legal custody.
Mara would agree to equal parenting.
Neither parent would disparage the other.
Grant would resign from Kingsley Holdings.
In exchange, Mara would not interfere with Meridian, would permit Bluebird to abstain, and would support a $25 million marital settlement.
Mara read it.
“He is selling me back my own child.”
Rebecca said, “Legally, no. Practically, he is linking family and corporate settlement in a deeply problematic way.”
“Can we use this?”
“Yes.”
“Then why would his lawyers send it?”
“Because sophisticated people sometimes believe putting coercion into formal language turns it into negotiation.”
Mara almost smiled.
The offer proved custody and Meridian were connected.
Grant had finally documented the link himself.
Mara rejected it.
Then Julian asked to meet.
He came to Kingsley House looking ten years older.
“I want out.”
“Of Blackmoor?”
“Of all of it.”
“Your proxy?”
“They can enforce it if Bluebird votes yes. If Bluebird votes no, it dies.”
Mara studied him.
“Why tell me now?”
“Because Grant promised the company would stay intact.”
“You believed that?”
Julian looked ashamed.
“I believed I would become chairman.”
“Those are different statements.”
“Yes.”
He put a file on the desk.
Blackmoor’s internal restructuring model.
Advanced Systems would be acquired, leveraged heavily, then split.
Facilities in Ohio and Arizona could close.
Thousands of jobs were potentially affected.
Mara looked up.
“Where did you get this?”
“Grant gave it to me by mistake in a broader data room.”
“And you kept it.”
“I started wondering why pages were missing from the version shown to the board.”
Mara felt anger.
“You knew before now.”
“Two weeks.”
“And said nothing.”
“I was trying to find a way out that didn’t bankrupt me.”
“Of course.”
Julian flinched.
Mara continued.
“Everyone wants honesty once it becomes affordable.”
“That includes you.”
She stared.
Julian did not back down.
“You threatened Grant. You hid a bad investment. Charles said you were impossible to challenge when you thought you were morally right.”
Mara’s anger rose.
Then stopped.
He was not wrong.
“What do you want from me?”
“Help refinancing my debt.”
“No.”
Julian looked stunned.
“I’ll give you the proxy.”
“No.”
“Mara—”
“I will not buy your vote.”
“You’d rather lose the company?”
“I’d rather know who owns the decision.”
Julian stared.
Then laughed quietly.
“That is not the Mara I remember.”
“No.”
He stood.
At the door, he paused.
“I’ll give you the file anyway.”
“Why?”
“Because if I’m going down, I’d like at least one decision not to be purchased.”
After he left, Mara found a handwritten note inside the restructuring file.
Grant’s writing.
BLUEBIRD = CONTROL. ELLIE ISSUE MUST CLOSE FIRST.
Mara photographed it.
Then her phone rang.
Grant.
She did not answer.
A voicemail appeared.
“Mara, we need to stop this before people get hurt.”
Another arrived.
“You think Vanessa is helping you now?”
Mara’s pulse changed.
A third:
“She works for Blackmoor. She always has.”
May you like
Charles’s warning had reached Grant.
And judging from his voice, he had just discovered that the woman he destroyed his marriage for may have been using him too.
