Chapter 6
The scheme began to look less like a power grab and more like a timing machine.
If Claire physically attacked Logan on Sunday, Grant planned to do three things Monday morning.
First:
File an emergency request with Ashby Fiduciary Bank to suspend Claire as Family Representative pending violence review.
Second:
Ask Bennett Response Group’s board to postpone any audit Claire had requested, arguing that her investigation had become entangled with an active personal family dispute.
Third:
Keep Tuesday’s acquisition technically alive while the trust’s authority was reviewed.
That did not guarantee the $18.6 million acquisition passed.
It did guarantee delay.
And delay was valuable.
Grant’s lender maturity was Friday.
Bennett Forge’s bank had agreed to grant a sixty-day extension if a corporate acquisition remained actively pending in good faith.
If Tuesday’s vote died outright, the extension vanished.
Claire’s no-vote was going to kill the transaction.
A governance dispute could keep it alive.
Rebecca looked at Claire.
“He needs uncertainty.”
“Yes.”
“Not victory.”
“Yes.”
That distinction changed everything.
Then the auditors found another Grant-controlled company:
Redwood Performance Media.
It handled branding and video production for Logan.
Bennett Forge had paid Redwood $1.9 million over four years.
Redwood subcontracted much of the work.
But $620,000 eventually flowed into a holding company controlled by Grant.
Not automatically improper.
Grant owned intellectual property and media rights.
The problem was disclosure.
The Bennett Forge board did not know Grant sat on both sides of the payments.
Bennett Response had reimbursed part of those media costs under community recruitment programs.
Claire’s requested audit would trace exactly that chain.
The acquisition could complicate recovery, valuation, and internal treatment.
It would not erase misconduct.
But closing first would give Grant better arguments.
Existing contracts become acquired-company liabilities.
Historical balances become purchase-accounting questions.
Related-party disputes become internal restructuring.
Everything gets harder to explain simply.
Then Daniel Ross provided one more piece.
Before the confrontation, Grant had approached him.
“Claire still doing all that soldier stuff?”
Daniel answered:
“She consults.”
Grant:
“Combat training?”
“Probably.”
Grant smiled.
“Good.”
Daniel thought it was strange at the time.
Now it was disturbing.
Grant was not merely relying on Claire getting angry.
He was relying on how her background would make that anger look afterward.
A former Ranger-associated colonel using military skills against her twenty-two-year-old nephew.
Photographed without the first punch.
That was the headline he wanted.
May you like
Instead, Claire had done the one thing his story could not tolerate.
She restrained Logan without hurting him.
