Chapter 2 - The Price of SilenceTwo days after Mara dropped the Mercer file on my desk, Grant Mercer requested an unscheduled dinner at a private dining club in midtown Manhattan.
The club was the kind of place where members didn't check prices because they assumed price was a vulgarity. Grant was waiting for me in a corner booth, swirling a glass of twenty-year-old scotch. His hair was impeccably silver, his suit tailored in London, and his face carved from thirty years of corporate ruthlessness.
He didn't stand when I arrived. He merely gestured to the empty leather seat across from him.
“Darren,” Grant said, his tone dry and perfunctory. “Sloan tells me you’ve been spending a lot of time away from the apartment lately. Managing your little investments, I suppose.”
“Something like that,” I said, sitting down and signaling the waiter for sparkling water.
Grant didn't waste time on pleasantries. Men like him only called meetings when the walls were closing in. He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the white linen tablecloth.
“I’m going to be direct with you, Darren. You’re a quiet man. You don't bring much social prestige to the family name, and you certainly don't contribute to Mercer Dominion’s bottom line. But Sloan loves you—or at least, she has tolerated you. So I’m willing to offer you a position.”
I raised an eyebrow. “A position?”
“We’re spinning off our logistics division into a subsidiary,” Grant said, speaking as if he were bestowing a knighthood. “I can place you as a junior vice president of regional transport. It pays two hundred thousand a year, plus performance bonuses. It will get you out of the apartment, give you something respectable to put on a business card, and stop Preston from making jokes at Sunday dinner.”
I looked at him. Really looked at him.
Here was a man whose entire enterprise was three weeks away from insolvency—a man whose company was currently being kept afloat because Keane Meridian’s shadow credit facility had quietly bought out their most aggressive bank creditors under an anonymous corporate veil.
And he was offering me a two-hundred-thousand-dollar token job so I wouldn't embarrass him at brunch.
“Grant,” I said, my tone mild, “have you looked at your balance sheet this morning?”
Grant’s smile froze. The silver-fox mask slipped for a fraction of a second, revealing the panicked, trapped animal underneath.
“What did you say?”
“I said,” I leaned back, crossing my legs, “that the logistics division you’re trying to spin off is currently encumbered by cross-collateralized debt held by an entity called Meridian Capital. If those notes aren't rolled over by Friday, your entire corporate structure triggers an automatic default.”
Grant’s face turned the color of ash. He gripped the edge of the table so hard his knuckles turned white.
“Who told you that?” he whispered, his voice trembling with sudden, unadulterated terror. “That information is restricted to the executive board and the lead bank syndicate! How could a nobody like you—?”
“A nobody?” I interrupted softly, holding his gaze until he looked away. “Grant, your daughter thinks I’m a kept husband. Your son thinks I’m a parasite. But right now, the only reason you can afford the scotch in your glass—and the suit on your back—is because I haven't signed the paperwork that would turn your fifteen-billion-dollar empire into a liquidation sale.”
Grant stared at me, his mouth slightly open, the arrogance completely drained out of him.
May you like
“You…” he choked out. “You’re the buyer?”
“Keep my name out of your board meetings,” I said, standing up and dropping a fifty-dollar bill on the table to cover my water. “And tell Preston to watch his mouth at dinner. Next time, I won't just buy your debt. I’ll repossess his car.”
