CHAPTER 6 — THE MAN INSIDE THE BOARDROOM
Hope was unharmed.
She sat inside her crib, clutching a stuffed rabbit while Harrison searched every room with the police.
The intruder had entered through the nursery window and left before anyone reached the second floor.
Nothing had been taken.
But a message had been written across the wall in black marker.
STOP LOOKING FOR MERIDIAN.
Khloe stood in the doorway, shaking with rage.
“They came into my daughter’s room.”
Harrison placed his jacket around her shoulders.
“We’re moving both of you tonight.”
“No.”
“Khloe—”
“I ran once. I hid in a hospital while Richard controlled the story. I’m not doing that again.”
“This is different.”
“No. It’s the same. Another man thinks fear will make me surrender something that belongs to me.”
Emma watched them from the hallway.
“We don’t have much time,” she said. “Whoever did this knows we opened the box.”
Khloe called an emergency board meeting the next morning.
Thomas Crane arrived early.
He was sixty-two, silver-haired, calm and professionally sympathetic.
When Khloe told the board about the break-in, Thomas appeared horrified.
“You and Hope should have corporate security immediately,” he said.
“I agree.”
Khloe passed a folder across the table.
“I also ordered a forensic audit of every transaction involving Meridian Land Holdings.”
For the first time, Thomas’s expression changed.
Only slightly.
But Khloe saw it.
“Meridian?” he asked. “I haven’t heard that name in years.”
“That’s interesting.”
“Why?”
“Because you received payments from Meridian for more than a decade.”
Several executives turned toward him.
Thomas smiled patiently.
“I represented Daniel on several development projects. Those payments were legitimate consulting fees.”
“Then you won’t object to the audit.”
“Of course not.”
He sat back.
“But I would advise caution. Accusing board members without complete evidence could damage shareholder confidence.”
Khloe met his gaze.
“That sounded less like advice and more like a warning.”
After the meeting, Thomas remained behind.
“You have become very confident,” he said.
“I stopped apologizing for surviving.”
“Richard underestimated you.”
“So did you.”
Thomas walked toward the door.
“Do you really believe every enemy announces himself by standing at the top of a courthouse staircase?”
Khloe’s breath caught.
The video of the attack showed Richard and Vanessa.
Thomas had never been accused of involvement.
“What do you know about that day?” she asked.
Thomas opened the door.
“I know Harrison arrived remarkably quickly.”
Then he left.
Khloe immediately called her brother.
Harrison did not answer.
She found him an hour later inside his office, packing case files into cardboard boxes.
“What are you doing?”
“Stepping away from your company’s legal representation.”
“Why?”
He handed her a subpoena.
Federal investigators were reviewing the payment linked to his electronic signature.
Thomas had submitted a sworn statement claiming Harrison personally directed the transfer.
“You didn’t do it,” Khloe said.
“I know.”
“Then fight it.”
“If I remain your attorney, everything I say will look self-serving. You need independent counsel.”
“You’re my brother.”
“That’s why I have to step away.”
Khloe saw the fear he was trying to hide.
Not fear for himself.
Fear that his past might destroy everything she had rebuilt.
Before she could respond, Lena Ortiz entered.
“We have a bigger problem.”
She placed a photograph on Harrison’s desk.
It had been taken outside a federal prison.
Thomas Crane stood beside Richard Harrington’s defense attorney.
The time stamp was two days earlier.
Lena laid down a second photograph.
This one showed Harrison leaving the same building twenty minutes later.
Khloe looked at her brother.
“You visited Richard?”
Harrison closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From what?”
Harrison looked toward Lena, then back at Khloe.
May you like
“Richard says your father did not die from natural causes.”
