Chapter 15 - Graham’s Grudge
Richard put Victoria on speaker.
Graham’s smile vanished.
“Turn that off.”
Victoria’s voice came through clearly. “Tell him, Graham.”
Richard looked between the phone and the man across the roof.
“Tell me what?”
Graham’s jaw tightened.
Victoria answered for him.
“His father worked for your company.”
Richard searched his memory.
Too many employees. Too many acquisitions.
Then a name surfaced.
“Samuel Pike.”
Graham laughed without humor.
“There you go.”
Samuel Pike had managed a regional distribution center twelve years earlier. He had falsified safety records after a warehouse accident. Richard had fired him and referred the matter to regulators.
Samuel lost his license, his career, and eventually his home.
“He blamed me,” Richard said.
“He blamed you until the day he died,” Graham replied. “You destroyed him and never looked back.”
“He endangered people.”
“He made one bad decision.”
“No. He covered up an accident.”
Graham’s face twisted.
“And you got to be the righteous billionaire while my family lost everything.”
Richard finally saw the shape of it.
Graham had not joined Sterling Enterprises simply to steal.
He had joined to get close.
Then he found Victoria.
Ambitious. Socially connected. Angry about being treated as decorative by her own family.
Useful.
“You introduced us,” Richard said.
“Yes.”
“You built the background file.”
“Yes.”
“You planned this before Maya could even talk.”
Graham looked at the case in his hand.
“I planned to make you lose the one thing you couldn’t buy back.”
Richard’s stomach turned.
A siren wailed below.
Graham stepped backward toward the helipad door.
Then Victoria said one final sentence through the phone.
“You forgot the duplicate, Graham.”
He froze.
May you like
Richard looked down at the phone.
Victoria whispered, “The real trust papers were never in that case.”
