Chapter 3 - The Room on the Seventh Floor
The cardiac observation unit on the seventh floor of Butterworth Hospital was blindingly white and smelled of antiseptic, cold plastic, and copper.
Grant sat propped up on three pillows in room 714, a heart monitor ticking rhythmically behind his head. The charcoal suit jacket I had given him was draped over a plastic chair in the corner, wrinkled and abandoned. He looked smaller without it. His skin was pale, his graying hair uncombed, and his hands trembled as he held a paper cup of water.
Standing beside the window, wearing a sleek cream blazer and holding an encrypted tablet, was Rebecca Sloan.
When the door opened and I walked in, flanked by Marion Pierce and a tall man in a navy suit carrying a leather briefcase, Rebecca’s posture instantly went rigid.
"Natalie," Grant gasped, setting the paper cup down so quickly water sloshed over his bare wrists. "Thank God. You came. Tell me Eli is okay. Please tell me he's okay."
"Eli is fine, Grant," I said, stopping at the foot of his bed. I didn't reach out to touch him. I didn't sit down. I stood like an auditor standing before a bankrupt firm. "He’s eating chocolate chip pancakes with Paul."
Rebecca stepped forward, her voice dropping into the smooth, practiced tone she used for crisis management press releases. "Natalie, this entire situation is a massive misunderstanding. The transactions to my brother's firm were part of a confidential land acquisition project for the Grand River development. Grant was trying to protect you from corporate liability—"
"Rebecca," I said, without even turning my head to look at her. "Silence."
The word hit the room like a physical blow. Rebecca opened her mouth to object, but Marion stepped between us, handing Rebecca a single piece of paper.
"That is a formal notice of corporate termination and a third-degree litigation hold, Ms. Sloan," Marion said coldly. "If you speak another word to my client, or if you touch any digital record associated with Holloway Residential Partners, you will be cited for obstruction of justice before the sunset."
Rebecca looked at Grant, her face flushing crimson, but Grant didn't even look at her. His eyes were glued to my face.
"Get out, Rebecca," Grant whispered.
"Grant!" she protested.
"GET OUT!" Grant yelled, the heart monitor behind him accelerating into a sharp, rhythmic beep.
Rebecca snatched her designer purse from the chair and hurried out of the room, her heels clicking angrily against the linoleum until the heavy wooden door swung shut behind her.
Silence settled over room 714.
"You opened the envelope," Grant said, his voice barely a whisper.
"I opened the envelope," I replied.
Grant covered his face with his trembling hands, a long, ragged breath escaping his chest. "My father told me about it three weeks before he died in 2014. He showed me the original ledger from 1989. He told me that Arthur Vance had taken Victoria's stock certificate and vanished into the Heritage Hill neighborhood after she died."
"My father didn't vanish, Grant," I said, taking one step closer to the bed. "My father hid me from your family. Because he knew your father had used Victoria’s money to build his business, and when she tried to leave him, he stripped her of her assets and tried to declare her mentally unfit."
"I didn't know that part!" Grant pleaded, leaning forward, the heart monitor wires straining against his hospital gown. "Natalie, I swear to you on Eli's life, I didn't know how evil my father was back then! I only knew that forty-nine percent of the company's equity was missing! When I met you at that seminar... yes, I knew who you were. I knew your father was Arthur Vance."
"And you made me fall in love with you," I said, my voice completely level. "You courted me for two years. You smiled at my father at our wedding while he sat in his wheelchair, knowing he was dying of heart failure. You let him hand me over to you, knowing you were doing the exact same thing your father did thirty years earlier."
"No!" Grant cried out, tears finally spilling over his eyelids. "It wasn't like that! I fell in love with you, Natalie! I really did! But then the company grew, the board wanted expansion, and the bank required a unified ownership structure for the loan guarantees! If the board found out forty-nine percent was held in an unverified trust, we would have lost the Lake Michigan development!"
"So you decided to erode me," I said softly.
Grant froze.
"You spent nine years quietly convincing me that my career didn't matter," I continued, pointing a finger at his chest. "You told me I was bad with money. You offered to manage the family finances so I wouldn't have to 'worry.' You encouraged me to stay home, to isolate myself, to stop looking at the numbers. You let your mother and your friends treat me like a dependent, while you used my forty-nine percent stake as collateral to take out twenty million dollars in commercial loans!"
"Natalie..."
"And then," I said, reaching into my purse and pulling out the amber photograph taken outside the Harbor Crest Hotel, "when you felt completely safe, when you thought I was so broken and helpless that I would never leave, you bought diamonds with Rebecca Sloan and joked that I had nowhere else to go."
Grant stared at the photograph resting on his lap. He couldn't speak. His jaw worked silently, his chest heaving under the hospital gown.
The man in the navy suit standing beside Marion stepped forward. He opened his leather briefcase, pulled out a thick bound document, and laid it on the bedside table.
"Mr. Holloway," the man said smoothly. "My name is David Chen. I am senior legal counsel representing The Vance-Sterling Revocable Trust. As of six o'clock this evening, your wife has formally activated her voting rights as controlling shareholder."
Grant looked up, bewildered. "Controlling shareholder? Forty-nine percent isn't a controlling majority!"
"It is," David Chen corrected him with a calm, lethal smile, "when combined with the fifteen percent treasury stake held by the city infrastructure board—a board that has just voted to strip you of your Chief Executive title due to the pending federal inquiry into Wade Fenwick."
Grant’s face went completely gray. The cup of water on his table rattled as his body shook.
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"You're taking my company," Grant whispered, staring at me as if he were seeing me for the very first time in twelve years.
"It was never your company, Grant," I said, leaning down until my face was inches from his. "It was my mother's. And now, it belongs to Eli."
