He reached for the leather folder.
I placed two fingers on it first.
“Before you take that, I’m photographing every page you presented as a management amendment.”
“You have no right.”
“You brought it to my firm and asked me to sign it.”
“It belongs to me.”
“I’m not keeping it.”
I picked up my phone and photographed the cover, the first page, the signature blocks, and every reference to my company.
Richard watched in silence.
His signature appeared nowhere.
Mine appeared twice.
Both were blank signature lines waiting to be filled.
At the bottom was a clause stating that the change had been approved by the company’s current authorized member.
It had not.
I looked up.
“Who drafted this?”
“That’s irrelevant.”
“It isn’t.”
“Business documents are revised all the time.”
“Not after someone threatens the business owner into signing them.”
Maryanne’s voice sharpened.
“Stop using legal words against your own father.”
Calvin, still on speaker, gave a humorless sigh.
“Maryanne, he walked into a law office with legal paperwork.”
She went quiet.
Richard grabbed the folder once I had finished photographing it.
“You’re going to regret this.”
I met his eyes.
“That sounds like another threat.”
He froze.
Mia’s pen moved across the page.
The gray-suited client looked directly at him.
Richard lowered his voice.
“You know what I mean.”
“No.
Explain it.”
He didn’t.
Grant stepped forward.
“Dad, just leave.”
Richard rounded on him.
“You think she’ll thank you for betraying your family?”
Grant’s face changed.
“No,” he said.
“I think I finally stopped helping you betray her.”
That landed harder than anything I could have said.
Maryanne looked at him as though she no longer recognized her own son.
“You were supposed to stay out of this.”
“I did stay out of it,” Grant replied.
“For years.”
He looked at me.
“When they cut you off, I stayed quiet because living with them was easier if I agreed with whatever version of the story they told.
Then every time your name came up, Dad acted like you’d failed.
When the firm started doing well, the story changed.
Suddenly you were ungrateful.
Then suddenly you had built something with a family name, so they deserved a part of it.”
Richard scoffed.
