“Because you still haven’t let go of the firm.”
“It’s not the firm I haven’t let go of. It’s my brother. Because despite my denial, I knew staying meant my brother became my enemy.”
Seth leans closer. “Listen to me, Shane. I’m thirty-five years old. I did seven years in the CIA and five years of contract work all over the world before I happened to take a job that threw us together. I’ve seen monsters. I’ve seen criminals. I’ve seen your family and I say this not just as the person you hired to have your back, but the friend who would have it anyway.” He taps the image of my brother in the photo. “This man is your enemy. And I’m not going to let you forget it.”
“He’s also my brother, and this is my family, who I want to save.”
“You may not be able to.”
“I’m aware of that and if I don’t take this company as my life, the way I did my law career, I won’t succeed. And believe me, I’ve navigated enough family-driven litigation to know that blood divides as easily as it unites, especially when money and power are involved. I have to get ahead of this before we all end up bloody or in jail.”
“So we agree. This is war.”
“It’s always been war. I didn’t want to name it, but I am now. It’s time we go to battle.”
“Meaning what?”
“I played nice for my brother’s sake. Today he put me—us—into the line of fire with the law, and I’m done pulling punches. The number-one obstacle is my need for the board’s vote to gain control.”
“And when exactly is that vote? Because the last I heard, your father wasn’t exactly retiring to hit a bucket list. If he hadn’t dropped twenty pounds in six months, I could forget the man is dying of cancer.”
If only forgetting made it not true. “Whatever the case, a vote now would not be in my favor and since we’ve agreed there isn’t a cure for corruption, our board needs to go away. That’s the only way I can freely dissolve the root of all of our problems, which is Brandon Financial where my father’s spent decades hiding people’s money and doing dirty deals for them. The rest of the companies—trucking, restaurants, real estate, and steel—they’re nothing but shells to hide money for us and those clients.”
“You won’t get rid of them without playing hardball.”
“I didn’t win the case I won, or save my father’s ass from the Feds, by playing softball. This is a chess game, and you can ask my father and brother. I’m damn good at chess, both on the board, and off. Hire the staff you need and get me the kind of leverage I can use to push them out.”
“Dirt or leverage?”
“Isn’t it one and the same with these kinds of people?”
“There can be a fine line.”
“And I’ll evaluate when I have data to analyze but if I don’t do this in one fatal blow, my family will push me out before I can.”
“I’ve already pulled enough substantial ‘dirt’ on everyone to force an exit, with the exception of Mike Rogers. He’s reading clean to me. The man owns a professional basketball team and twenty percent of our stock and I can’t figure out why he’s even risking the liability he knows exists here. He has to have hidden money with your father, but we can’t use that without the threat of the company being exposed.”
“His money is exactly why he’s involved. He has a boatload to hide and invest. He has more to lose when we shut down the investment division than anyone. Interestingly enough, Mike is the only one, aside from me, Derek, and my father, who has the complete list of transactions for the financial division. He could rally people together. He’s dangerous.”
“Why would your father put him on the board and give him that kind of power?”
“Good question, because my father isn’t one to give anyone else power. I’ll ask my mother what she knows. In the meantime, get me what you have on the others.”
“You’re sure your mother’s still on your side?”
“Believe me. My mother doesn’t think orange jumpsuits work for her. Last year’s brush with the law scared the shit out of her. Fortunately for her, I plan to make Brandon Enterprises something far bigger, and more prosperous, than ever before.” I grab the picture and stuff it in the envelope.
“What are you going to do about that?” he asks.
“Use my father to rein in Derek to buy us some time while I prepare to leash him myself. And speaking of Derek, are we sure he doesn’t have anyone inside BP on his payroll?”