Chapter 4 - The Counter-Strike
By Wednesday afternoon, the Mercer family had realized that begging would not work. Desperation, as it so often does in broken families, turned into venom.
I was sitting in my office reviewing our quarterly expansion plans into European shipping corridors when my legal counsel, Marcus Vance (Arthur’s son and our senior corporate litigator), walked in without knocking.
"We have a problem, Lauren," Marcus said, placing a tablet on my desk.
On the screen was a local Chicago tabloid website. The lead headline read: "LOGISTICS TYCOON LAUREN MERCER ABANDONS ELDERLY FATHER AND EVICTS FAMILY IN BITTER INHERITANCE DISPUTE."
The article included a dramatic photo of Gregory sitting on a bench outside the estate, looking frail and distraught, flanked by Peter and Karen. In the interview, Gregory claimed I had used "corrupt financial tactics" to steal his father's company, stripped him of his retirement pension, and thrown his grandchildren onto the street because of a "minor family argument."
There was no mention of Eli. There was no mention of the physical assault.
"They're trying to destroy your corporate reputation right before the European merger vote next week," Marcus warned. "The German investment group, Hauff & Bauer, has a strict corporate ethics clause. If they think you're involved in a high-profile family elder abuse scandal, they will pull out of the sixty-million-dollar deal."
I scrolled through the article, reading the vicious comments below.
User102: "Typical billionaire step-daughter stealing from her working-class family." User88: "Evicting her own brother's kids? She sounds like a monster."
My phone buzzed on the desk. It was an email notification from the Board of Directors of Mercer Global Logistics: EMERGENCY BOARD MEETING REQUESTED AT 4:00 PM.
"Peter still has two allies on the board," Marcus noted grimly. "Old directors who were loyal to your father twenty years ago. They’re going to try to use this public relations storm to force you into a financial settlement with Gregory."
I leaned back in my leather chair, looking out over the skyline of Chicago.
"They think I'm defensive," I murmured softly. "They think I'm going to hire a PR firm to issue a quiet, diplomatic apology."
"What are you going to do?" Marcus asked.
I pulled out my keycard, unlocked my bottom desk drawer, and retrieved a high-speed encrypted flash drive.
"When I bought the Mercer estate four years ago," I said, sliding the drive across the desk to Marcus, "I installed a state-of-the-art 4K security system around the entire perimeter, including the patio, the pool, and the rear gardens. It records high-definition video and directional audio."
Marcus raised an eyebrow. "You have the full footage of the incident?"
"I have the footage from the patio," I said, my voice dropping into a register of absolute fatality. "I have the footage of my father calling my son a 'fake blood parasite.' I have the clear, unedited audio of the slap. And I have the footage of Peter laughing two minutes before it happened when Gregory said Eli didn't belong in the family."
Marcus picked up the flash drive like it was made of weapons-grade plutonium. A sharp, predatory smile broke across his face.
"Do you want me to send this to the board?" Marcus asked.
"No," I replied, standing up and buttoning my navy blazer. "Send it directly to the news anchor who published that tabloid article. And tell him if he doesn't air the full video during tonight's six o'clock broadcast alongside an immediate retraction, my legal team will file a fifty-million-dollar defamation suit against his media network by seven o'clock."
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"And the board meeting at four?"
"Oh, I'll be at the board meeting," I smiled coldly. "Because by four-thirty, two of those old directors are going to resign, or they'll be facing an audit of their corporate expense accounts from 2018."
