Chapter 5 - The Retaliation
Grant and his mother did not go quietly. Denied their wealth and corporate power, they turned to the only weapon they had left: desperation and malice.
Two weeks after the boardroom coup, I was working late in my new office at Mercer Industries—now rebranded as Aegis-Mercer Global. The company’s stock had stabilized, and the morale among the staff had soared once they realized their jobs were secure. But personal peace was harder to find.
My phone rang. It was an unknown number.
"Elena," Grant’s voice came through the speaker, low and ragged. He sounded drunk. "Are you enjoying my office? Are you enjoying my father’s desk?"
"Grant. This call is being recorded, and it violates the terms of the temporary restraining order," I said, my finger hovering over the button to alert security.
"I don't care about your restraining order!" he snarled. "You took everything from me. My friends won't take my calls. My mother is living in a two-bedroom apartment in the suburbs. Charlotte had to cancel her wedding. We are the laughingstock of the city!"
"You did that to yourselves, Grant. You spent money you didn't have and treated people like garbage."
"Listen to me, you arrogant bitch," Grant hissed. "You think you’re so smart. You think you cleaned up all my messes. You forgot about the container terminal project in Savannah. The one you refused to sign off on last year."
My heart skipped a beat. The Savannah terminal project was a massive logistics expansion that Grant had pushed for, but I had flagged it as an environmental and financial disaster due to faulty soil testing and illegal zoning bribes. I had explicitly told him to drop it.
"What did you do, Grant?"
"I didn't drop it," he laughed, a hysterical, unstable sound. "I signed the construction contracts anyway. Using the company’s name, through a subsidiary I set up right before you took over. And guess what? The local environmental protection agency just found a massive toxic chemical spill under the site. A spill that happened while the subsidiary was conducting illegal excavations. The cleanup costs are estimated at ninety million dollars. And since you own the parent company now... you own the liability."
He paused, breathing heavily into the phone.
"The EPA is going to raid your offices tomorrow morning, Elena. The press is already tipped off. You wanted my company? You got it. Enjoy the toxic waste."
The line went dead.
I sat in the dark office, the chill of panic creeping up my spine. A ninety-million-dollar environmental liability, coupled with potential criminal charges for illegal excavation, could destroy the newly stabilized Aegis-Mercer Global. It could wipe out the inheritance my aunt had left me.
I immediately called Arthur Vance. "Arthur, we have a problem. Grant set a dead-man's switch in Savannah."
"I'm already on it, Elena," Arthur’s voice was tense. "My team just saw a massive spike in short-selling on our stock in the after-hours market. Someone knew this news was coming and is trying to profit off the crash. It’s Julian Mercer. He’s working with Grant to destroy the company so they can buy it back for pennies."
"They're willing to sink their own family legacy just to beat me," I said, looking out at the city lights.
"They aren't just trying to beat you, Elena. They’re trying to ruin you permanently. If the EPA proves the parent company knew about the spill and concealed it, you could face prison time."
I closed my eyes, remembering the feel of the hot soup burning my scalp, the sound of Evelyn's laughter. They thought they had backed me into a corner. They thought I would panic.
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But they forgot one very important thing: I wasn't just the owner of the company. I was the attorney who knew exactly where the bodies were buried.
"Arthur," I said, my voice hardening into steel. "Call an emergency meeting with the Director of the EPA. We aren't going to hide this. We’re going to blow it wide open ourselves."
