Chapter 3
Until that dinner, I had planned to give the report to my father privately. I wanted to protect the company's employees and offer Grant one chance to resign before the board became involved.
Then Liam picked up the paper tray.
"Can I eat in the hallway?" he whispered. "I don't want to embarrass anybody."
Something inside me became perfectly still.
"No," I said. "You're staying here."
I placed the hot dog in the center of the table and looked at Grant. He smiled because he thought I had surrendered.
"Don't create a symbolic tragedy over processed meat," he said.
A few relatives smiled nervously. They had spent years treating his cruelty like clever humor because laughing required less courage than challenging him.
I stood and tapped my spoon against my glass. The sound traveled through the dining room.
"What are you doing?" my father asked.
"Correcting the guest list."
Grant told me to sit down. Instead, I looked toward the doorway, where three members of the Mercer Civic Development Board had just entered with Naomi Clark, the company's outside compliance attorney, carrying a locked document case.
Grant's smile vanished.
May you like
"Before dessert is served," I said, lifting my glass, "everyone needs to hear why Grant will no longer be running our family company by morning."
Naomi set the case on a side table and opened it. Inside were summary copies of the report — twenty pages distilled from my two hundred, prepared specifically for this moment because my father, when I had finally shown him the full document three days earlier, had made the decision that the board needed to see it tonight, in front of the family, rather than in a closed session where Grant could spend another week constructing explanations.
