“She hasn’t worked in three years.”
“That doesn’t make her illiterate.”
Grant stepped closer.
“Careful.”
Reese looked around the empty ballroom.
“At what point tonight did careful become your strategy?”
Grant’s face tightened.
“She was going to take it to Dad.”
“So you hit her?”
“I lost control for two seconds.”
“You hit a pregnant woman under a security camera.”
“My wife.”
Reese stared at him.
“That does not improve the sentence.”
Grant walked away.
Reese drained his drink.
“We need to know what footage they have.”
“Marcus won’t answer me.”
“Then call someone else.”
“I tried.”
“And?”
“Server room is locked.”
Reese swore.
Neither man noticed the tiny black microphone built into the ballroom’s temporary AV system.
Neither knew Marcus had ordered all event audio preserved when Grant tried to bribe his operations manager.
And neither knew Everett Whitmore was sitting two rooms away with headphones on.
Marcus stood beside him.
Nathan stood at the window.
Everett listened as his son said:
“She was going to take it to Dad.”
Then Reese:
“So you hit her?”
Then Grant:
“I lost control for two seconds.”
Everett removed the headphones.
Marcus said nothing.
Nathan said nothing.
Everett’s hand rested flat on the table.
“When I was twelve,” he said quietly, “my father broke my mother’s jaw.”
Nathan looked at him.
Everett continued.
“Drunk. Christmas Eve. Told everybody she fell on the porch.”
Marcus lowered his eyes.
“I left home at seventeen because I promised myself I would never become him.”
Nathan said, “You didn’t.”
Everett looked toward the ballroom.
“No.”
Then his voice hardened.
“But apparently I raised him.”
At 12:18 a.m., Grant’s phone rang.
DAD.
He answered immediately.
“Where are you?”
Everett’s voice was calm.
“Library.”
Grant glanced at Reese.
Then walked away.
“Is Claire with you?”
“No.”
“Where is she?”
“Come to the library.”
“Dad—”
“Now.”
Grant ended the call.
Reese stood.
“What?”
Grant stared at the phone.
“He knows something.”
“You don’t know that.”
“He used the voice.”
“What voice?”
“The one before he fires people.”
Reese’s face paled.
Grant walked toward the library.
He expected his father.
He did not expect Marcus.
He did not expect Nathan.
And he definitely did not expect the laptop sitting open on Everett’s desk.
Grant stopped.
His father sat behind it.
“Close the door.”
Grant did.
“Dad, before anyone overreacts—”
“Sit.”
Grant sat.
Everett pushed the Halcyon Ridge agreement across the desk.
Grant’s eyes flicked toward Nathan.
“Claire gave you that?”
“Yes.”
“She doesn’t understand the transaction.”
Everett leaned back.
“Explain it to me.”
Grant hesitated.
“It’s bridge financing.”
“For?”
“Scottsdale.”
“I killed Scottsdale fourteen months ago.”
“You rejected the original structure.”
“I rejected the deal.”
“The numbers changed.”
“Then why didn’t you bring them to me?”
Grant’s jaw shifted.
“Because you don’t let me make decisions anymore.”
Everett stared at him.
Grant continued.
“You second-guess everything I do.”
“You wanted to risk eighty-six million dollars on desert land with questionable water rights.”
“Water rights can be negotiated.”
“Water cannot be negotiated into existence.”
Reese would have laughed at that line under different circumstances.
Grant didn’t.
Everett tapped page four.
“Why are your mother’s Hawthorne shares listed as collateral?”
“They’re my shares.”
“They are restricted trust assets.”
“I’m the beneficiary.”
“So is your unborn daughter.”
Grant said nothing.
Everett leaned forward.
“Why does this document say Claire approved preliminary terms two weeks ago?”
“She did.”
Nathan spoke for the first time.
“No, she didn’t.”
Grant looked at him.
“She told you that?”
“She told us she never signed anything.”
Grant scoffed.
“Claire forgets half the papers I put in front of her.”
Nathan pushed the signature page closer.
“She signs Claire Elizabeth Whitmore on binding legal documents.”
Grant’s face changed.
Barely.
Enough.
Everett saw it.
Nathan saw it.
Marcus saw it.
Grant looked down.
“That’s administrative.”
“Forgery is not administrative,” Nathan said.
“No one forged anything.”
“Then who applied her electronic signature?”
“My office.”
Nathan’s eyebrows rose.
“Without authorization?”
Grant stood.
“This is insane. Claire is upset because we had an argument.”
Everett’s voice went flat.
“Sit down.”
Grant did not.
“Dad, she is hormonal, she is under pressure, and she has been looking for reasons to undermine me for months.”
Everett nodded toward the laptop.
“Interesting.”
Grant followed his gaze.
Everett pressed play.
The corridor appeared.
Timestamp in the corner.
9:03:14 p.m.
Claire walked into frame.
Grant followed.
No sound for the first two seconds.
Then audio.
Grant’s voice.
Sign the damn paper.
Claire’s.
No.
You are making me look like an idiot.
Then explain Halcyon Ridge to your father.
Claire—
If Everett knows about it, he can explain it to me.
You always do this.
Read things?
Humiliate me.
Grant, move.
Then the slap.
Clear.
Unmistakable.
Claire stumbled.
Her hand went to her stomach.
Grant stared at the screen.
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