“That’s how I operate,” I say. “I have something brilliant that sits just out of reach but leads me through a discovery process. It’s close. It’s really close.”
“And this discovery process tells you that we need to suck up to Mike. To the man who fucked our mother and is trying to fuck us.”
“That’s right.” I open the door of the Bentley and get out, typing a quick text to Emily: Parents in the air. Went as expected. Working on that plan. Let me know all is well there.
“What are you hoping to gain by doing this?” Derek presses, meeting me at the hood of the car.
“He’s been working to divide us,” I say, falling into step with him and heading toward the door. “We’re uniting and removing that option. That means he’ll make a move that shows his hand.”
My phone beeps with Emily’s reply: So calm here, I feel like I’m at the wrong place.
Satisfied she’s safe and all is well, I slide my phone back into my pocket. “It seems to me like his efforts to divide us keep him distracted and buy us time. I wrote our bylaws and they’re damn good. No move he can make will be fast or easy. I’m working toward an endgame.”
“That’s still floating around in your mind and I’m supposed to blindly follow.”
“I’m a better bet than Pops. I promise you, brother.”
We enter the lobby, where the basketball team’s logo is etched in every other tile beneath our feet, and on the front of the oval reception desk. We approach, announcing our presence. “If you could let Mike Rogers know we’re here and it’s urgent.”
“Of course,” the twentysomething woman says, dialing his number.
In all of thirty seconds, she’s on her feet, rounding the desk. “This way,” she says, indicating a hallway to our right that we quickly enter before stopping at door number one. “Mr. Rogers will be with you shortly,” the woman says, opening the door and granting us access to a tiny room with a schoolroom-style round table and wooden chairs that I suspect are used for application processing.
Derek takes a seat at the table while I lean against the wall and check my watch, setting the timer. “We wait fifteen minutes to look respectably agitated and we leave.”
“You don’t think he’s going to see us?”
“At this point. I know he’s not.”
“Then why put us in this room?”
“The shithole of a room is the telltale sign that he’s not going to see us.” I glance at my watch again. “Three minutes. Twelve more to go.” And so we wait. No words. Just Derek tapping the table incessantly, another telltale sign, this one of his nerves over a meeting that isn’t going to happen.
At exactly fifteen minutes, I lift my arm to indicate my watch, and Derek stands. “Now what?”
I push off the wall and reach into my jacket, removing two envelopes marked URGENT. “We leave him one of the two messages I’ve found always get me the attention I want. I’ll let you pick.” We step into the hallway. “Letter A says simply: IRS. Letter B says simply: Bankruptcy.”
Derek laughs. “Priceless. I choose Bankruptcy. Just thinking about how he’ll shit his pants pretty much makes my day.”
“Bankruptcy it is,” I say, sticking the IRS note back into my pocket and walking to reception.
“Please give this to Mr. Rogers, and I’d appreciate it if you read him the note inside immediately. It’s a time-sensitive legal matter.”
“Of course,” she promises, and Derek and I head for the door, exiting the building.
“How long do you think it will take for him to reply?”
“The average is the same fifteen minutes we waited,” I say, clicking the locks to the Bentley, and I’ve just opened my door when I hear, “Shane!”
At the sound of Mike’s voice, Derek and I share an amused look over the roof of the car. I check my watch. “One minute. A new record.” And proof he was lingering nearby when we were sitting in that room. I motion to the front of the car, and Derek and I come together there, sending the “united we stand” message that we came here to deliver.
Mike stalks toward us, a team logo on his collared shirt, his arms as ripped as a linebacker’s beneath the short sleeves. The scowl on his face is fitting for a football player who just got hit wrong and wants to hit back. He stops in front of us. “I knew there were problems you boys couldn’t handle, and I knew your father wasn’t on his game anymore. I’m going to petition to take over the company. Expect paperwork by Monday.” He says nothing more, turning and stalking away, his reaction bigger and better than I could have imagined it to be.
“We aren’t in bankruptcy,” I say to his back. “Not even close. We just wanted to get your attention.”
He rotates to face me, that scowl deepening, furrowing his forehead with heavy lines. “I’m still petitioning to take over the company.” He turns, and this time I let him leave.
“What the hell?” Derek demands. “Shane. This is a major problem.”
I motion to the car, where no one can observe our interactions, and the instant we’re inside, Derek is showing that reactive side of himself again. “I told you, we need to let Adrian deal with him.”
My lips curve and I look at Derek. “That plan of mine, that was out of reach, isn’t out of reach anymore. You’re right. We do need to let Adrian deal with him. And Monday, or whenever Mike attempts legal action, is when the party starts. We’ll counteroffer his takeover by offering him the pharmaceutical company, for a healthy fee, of course, that allows us to transition our business. And he’ll then inherit Adrian Martina.”
“The pharmaceutical branch is our most profitable.”
“Which is why he’ll have to pay us to take it over and pay us well.”
“That seems a little too easy and clean for what we’re dealing with here.”
“It won’t be easy. Mike won’t agree to what I’m proposing. He’ll try to take everything and I’ll have to force his hand.”
“How?”
“Aside from photos of him sleeping with the CEO’s wife, that I can spin in all kinds of ways to at least taint a judge’s opinion of him, Adrian will be in my pocket.”
“In your pocket? Doubtful. And you said you couldn’t get out. He wants you involved.”
“I’m going to be when I convince him Mike is the perfect little bitch he needs and hand him his new business partner. One he’ll want to ensure signs that deal.”
“Assuming this works, are you authorized to sign off on a deal like this in place of Pops?”
“Not unless Pops is incapacitated, and now that I let him get on the plane without coming up with this plan first, that becomes complicated. I need to get to the office, draft the paperwork, and put Seth on a plane to Germany to get his signatures.”
“Too bad your idea wasn’t a real idea until now.”