Chapter 8 - THE PRICE OF TRUST
By nine that morning, Mercer Logistics was full of rumors.
Ethan had stood up.
Vanessa had poured champagne on him.
Police had taken Reed aside.
Someone had uploaded eleven seconds of ballroom footage.
The clip ended before the folder appeared.
Online, strangers argued about whether Ethan had pretended to need a wheelchair.
Inside his company, the questions were worse.
Had he staged the whole thing?
Was he fit to lead?
Were the warehouses being sold?
Ethan arrived through the loading entrance.
Drivers stopped talking when they saw him.
He used his chair.
He was too tired to perform strength for anyone.
The controller, Martin Wells, met him upstairs.
Martin had worked there for seventeen years.
His shirt was wrinkled.
His eyes were red.
“I need to tell you something.”
Ethan stopped.
Martin handed him a stack of bank confirmations.
“They weren’t all emergency expenses.”
“How much?”
“Just under two million.”
Grace took the papers.
Payments had gone to consulting firms with no staff, temporary vendors, and Bell Street Holdings.
“Why didn’t you bring this to me?” Ethan asked.
Martin looked down.
“Reed said you knew.”
“You could have asked.”
“I was afraid you’d think I was questioning your wife.”
Ethan let the answer sit.
Then Martin said the part that cost him more.
“My son works for Nolan’s construction company. Nolan said the job would disappear if I made trouble.”
Claire, standing near the window, turned away.
Ethan stared at a man he had trusted with every payroll.
“You let them use this company.”
Martin nodded.
“Yes.”
Grace checked the server.
Most of the accounting files were intact.
Several approval emails had been deleted during the night.
Martin admitted he had removed them after Reed called.
But the system kept backups.
Ethan looked at Grace.
“Preserve everything. Martin’s access ends now.”
Martin flinched.
“Ethan—”
“You’ll speak to Lydia. You’ll tell her the truth. What happens after that is not something I can promise.”
Martin placed his badge on the desk.
That sound hurt more than Ethan expected.
A soft plastic tap.
Seventeen years, ending that way.
Before Martin left, he pointed to an unopened courier envelope.
“Reed had that delivered this morning.”
Inside was a notice from Graybridge.
Payment was due in seventy-two hours.
Failing that, the lender intended to move against the warehouses.
Attached was a proposed solution.
May you like
Ethan could keep the properties.
If he surrendered voting control of Mercer Logistics to Vanessa.
