Return to the Apex: No More Mr. Nice Guy novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: The Empty Chair

The boardroom of Thorpe Industries was on the nineteenth floor, and it had a view of the Common that Lawrence had paid for three times over.

At ten on Friday there were nine directors at the long table and one empty chair at its head.

Lawrence arrived four minutes late, in a good suit that had been sent to the cleaners the day before the movers came.

He saw me at the table's foot with my arm out of the sling, and he stopped.

"This is a closed meeting," he said.

"I hold a two-million-dollar note on your house and a demand for eleven point four million," I said. "I'm a creditor. Your counsel told the board I could attend."

"My counsel is a coward."

"Probably," said the man on his left. "Sit down, Lawrence."

He sat.

Marin was in the last chair by the door, with her laptop closed and her folder under her hand.

She had not looked at me when I came in.

I had not looked at her either. It was the hardest thing I had done all week.

The chairman of the audit committee, a thin gray man, cleared his throat.

"We have received a document," he said. "Signed, we are told, by our chairman."

He slid four pages down the table.

Lawrence did not touch them.

"It's a forgery," he said. "Everyone knows Marin Ashdown wants revenge on me."

"I do," Marin said from her chair.

Heads turned.

"I do want revenge. I'll tell you what he did before I tell you what I did."

She stood.

"Four years ago, my father tried to sell a small firm. Mr. Thorpe told him no one else would bid. He told him Harbor Lane would pay sixty cents on the dollar and that this was a kindness."

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