Chapter 5 - Unraveling the Myth
By two in the afternoon, the executive floor had been cleared of everyone except the direct principals.
The SEC investigators had completed their preliminary interview with Sloane in the third-floor conference suite and escorted her from the building through the freight concourse to avoid the local business press, who had already caught wind of an unscheduled regulatory hold on Halston Industrial’s debt issue.
I sat in the small, sunlit library adjacent to the boardroom, reviewing the revised closing schedule with Rachel via tablet. The stained silk dress from the night before was hanging in a garment bag inside my car; I had changed into an unadorned navy wool sheath dress and low heels that I kept in my office wardrobe.
The heavy walnut door pushed open, and Grant came in.
He looked as though ten years had been violently carved out of his face in ten hours. His eyes were bloodshot, his skin pale and pasty. He held a crystal tumbler half-full of bourbon, despite the hour.
"Rachel," I said without looking up, "give us ten minutes."
Rachel gathered her legal pads, gave Grant a look of cool, professional detachment, and slipped out, closing the door behind her with a quiet click.
Grant didn't sit down. He walked over to the tall windows overlooking the city, took a swallow of his drink, and stared out at the graying afternoon sky.
"She played me," he said. His voice was cracked, hollowed out by disbelief. "From the very first week. The recall crisis... she didn't just manage the messaging. She steered the settlement parameters toward distributors she already had relationships with. She made me feel like I was running the company for the first time in my life, Catherine. She made me feel... significant."
"You were significant, Grant," I replied, setting Dad’s silver pen down on the blotter. "You were the Chief Executive Officer with master administrative access and a signature that could bind an eighty-year-old firm. That is an extraordinarily valuable asset to an opportunist."
He turned around, his eyes shining with unshed tears. "Is that all I was to you, too? An assignment? A governance risk to be managed?"
I looked at him, feeling an odd, weightless clarity. There was no anger left in me; the wine stain had been the final expenditure of my emotional capital.
"I loved you for eleven years, Grant," I said softly. "I loved you when your father died and you spent six months terrified that the board would replace you. I loved you through three failed factory modernizations when Celeste told you that you were ruining your family name, and I stayed up until three in the morning rewriting your operational reports so the banks wouldn't hike our interest rates. I absorbed your mother’s insults at every Thanksgiving dinner, every charity gala, every board retreat, because I thought I was protecting your peace."
"You never told me it was that hard for you," he whispered.
"I didn't think I had to tell my husband that being treated like a second-class interloper was painful," I said. "I thought competence was my contribution to our marriage. But you didn't want competence, Grant. Competence requires accountability. You wanted admiration that came without standards. Sloane gave you that. She sold you a fantasy of yourself as a bold, unappreciated maverick, and all she asked in return was your signature on documents you were too lazy to read."
Grant dropped his head into his hands, the crystal tumbler wobbling dangerously in his grip. "You can fix this, Catherine. You've always fixed this. You know the lenders. You know the syndicate partners. Peter Lang trusts you. If you certify that the fraud was isolated to Sloane, that the company was an innocent victim, we can still execute the contract by Friday. The family will pay whatever fine the SEC levies. We can survive this."
"The company might survive this," I said, standing up. "You will not."
He froze, lowering his hands. "What are you talking about?"
"Naomi has already drafted the emergency resolution," I said, keeping my tone as even as a balance sheet. "At four o'clock, the board will vote on whether to remove you as Chief Executive Officer for gross negligence and breach of internal control protocols."
"My mother will never allow that," Grant gasped, his voice rising in sudden terror. "The Halston family controls forty-two percent of the voting common stock! She will block the quorum!"
"Your mother has already surrendered her proxy, Grant."
He stared at me, uncomprehending. "What?"
"Celeste met with Naomi and me an hour ago," I told him, looking him straight in the eyes. "The lenders made it very clear. If you remain CEO, they call the existing credit line immediately. Halston Industrial would be in Chapter 11 by Monday morning. Celeste's shares would be wiped out. Her house in Gladwyne, her trust dividends, her social position—everything she actually values—would vanish into the liquidation pool."
A bitter, trembling smile touched Grant’s lips. "She chose the shares."
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"Of course she chose the shares," I said. "You should know that better than anyone. You learned how to sacrifice people from her. The only difference is, this time, you were the one on the altar."
***
