Chapter 5 - The Anatomy of a Cover-Up
The fire in the hearth crackled loudly, sending showers of yellow sparks up the brick chimney.
Richard slowly set his brandy glass down on the side table. He didn't look flustered. He didn't scream or deny the name. He simply leaned back in his chair, folding his manicured hands over his knee.
"I see Arthur was unable to handle the situation discreetly," Richard said, his voice flat and devoid of emotion.
"Arthur didn't handle anything," I replied, opening my briefcase and pulling out the certified safety logs. I slammed them onto the table beside his drink. "You let a twenty-six-year-old technician die because you didn't want to spend four hundred thousand dollars replacing a pressure seal before Q4 financial reports."
Richard picked up the pages, scanned them casually, and tossed them back onto the table.
"That facility was operating under tight margins, Adrian," Richard said calmly, as if he were explaining a minor corporate accounting error. "If we had shut down Plant 4 for three weeks in October, our stock valuation would have dropped twelve percent. We were finalizing the European merger."
"A man died, Richard!" I roared, slamming my fist onto the mahogany desk. "He saved eighty workers while you sat in this room drinking thirty-year-old scotch! And then you framed him for his own death!"
"We settled with the family!" Richard snapped back, his voice finally losing its calm facade. "We gave the widow two hundred thousand dollars! We protected the company, we protected the stock, and we protected your inheritance!"
"You made her beg her mother for twenty-eight dollars to buy baby formula!" I shouted, stepping closer to his chair. "She cleans my bathrooms while Arthur Vance dribbles out pennies from a trust fund you used to control her life like a prisoner!"
Richard stood up, his tall frame towering over the desk. His gray eyes were cold, hard, and devoid of remorse.
"Listen to me, Adrian," Richard hissed. "You are the CEO of Whitmore Group because your father built an empire. Empires are not built on sympathy. They are built on hard decisions. If David Keane's name is cleared, Whitmore Chemical faces federal criminal indictments, insurance fraud charges, and a class-action lawsuit from eighty plant workers. It will destroy us."
"Then let it destroy us," I said softly.
May you like
Richard stared at me, a cold, mocking smile touching his thin lips.
"You won't do it, nephew," Richard whispered. "Because if you destroy Whitmore Group, you destroy yourself."
