Chapter 6 - DISMANTLING THE EMPIRE
Over the next two weeks, the financial world experienced a massive earthquake.
The news broke across The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and Forbes: MERCER DOMINION COLLAPSES INTO RECEIVERSHIP; UNKNOWN BILLIONAIRE DARREN KEANE TAKES TOTAL CONTROL.
The story was catastrophic for the Mercers.
The public discovery that Grant Mercer had been secretly bankrupt three years prior—and that his soft-spoken son-in-law had been anonymously propping up the family while they publicly mocked him—became the biggest scandal of the year in high-society circles.
Social media tore the Mercer family to shreds. The video of Sloan attempting to humiliate me at the gala—recorded by a guest’s smartphone—went viral, receiving millions of views. The public watched in utter fascination as the entitled billionaire heiress was stripped of her fortune by the very man she had tried to force onto his knees.
Inside Mercer Dominion Tower—now renamed Keane Meridian Plaza—Mara and I spent eighteen-hour days restructuring the company.
We spun off the failing freight divisions, protected the jobs of four thousand lower-level workers, and cut away the millions of dollars in bloated executive expense accounts that Grant and Preston had been draining for years.
In one afternoon, I signed papers liquidating Grant Mercer’s country club memberships, his private jets, and the Miami yacht.
One Tuesday morning, Mara walked into my new corner office, holding a folder.
“Grant Mercer filed for personal bankruptcy protection an hour ago,” Mara reported. “Claudia is staying at a cheap hotel in Rhode Island, complaining to anyone who will listen. And Preston...” Mara chuckled faintly. “Preston was spotted working as a junior valet at a country club in Greenwich. He lasted two days before quitting.”
I looked out at the Boston skyline, feeling no delight in their misery, but a profound, settled sense of justice.
“And Sloan?” I asked quietly.
Mara sighed softly, setting a second document on my desk.
“She’s living in a modest one-bedroom apartment in South Cambridge,” Mara said. “She refused her father’s request to join them in Rhode Island. She signed the divorce papers yesterday without requesting a single cent of alimony or asset division.”
May you like
I looked at the signed divorce document resting on my desk. Sloan’s signature was shaky, smeared with a single dried tear at the edge of the paper.
She had surrendered everything.
