Chapter 7 - THE MAN WHO PROFITED IF GRANT DIED
Grant wanted to hunt Victor.
I refused to help.
The federal investigators refused more formally.
For once, law and I agreed.
The life-insurance policy had been created using falsified corporate-benefit documents.
Grant had signed an unrelated executive-insurance package years earlier.
Victor copied the signature.
Then increased the policy repeatedly.
Seventy-five million dollars.
Enough motive to terrify anyone.
But motive was not proof Victor planned murder.
We stayed with facts.
Then investigators found something else.
Victor had booked a private aircraft.
Departure:
Teterboro.
Destination:
Belize.
Passenger manifest:
Victor Dane.
Melissa Dane.
One additional passenger.
Name:
Sadi—
No.
Wrong story.
Here:
Sophia Dane.
Victor’s twelve-year-old granddaughter.
That mattered.
A child.
Federal authorities intercepted them before departure.
No dramatic gunfight.
No mafia execution.
Just customs officers and fraud investigators.
Grant hated how ordinary it looked.
I liked it.
Victor was arrested alive.
Melissa surrendered.
Sophia went safely to her mother.
Then Victor asked for a deal.
He had records on Hale businesses.
Illegal ones.
Grant’s criminal organization.
Years of evidence.
He wanted reduced charges in exchange.
Grant sat across from his attorneys afterward.
Silent.
I was there only because the Carter trust case intersected.
He looked at me.
“If I cooperate, everything changes.”
“Yes.”
“My companies.”
“Yes.”
“People go to prison.”
“Possibly.”
“My name.”
I almost laughed.
“Grant, your name is already associated with organized crime.”
Fair.
He smiled once.
Then became serious.
“I could fight this.”
“Yes.”
“Probably win some of it.”
“Maybe.”
He looked down.
“Grace will grow up reading about me.”
There it was.
Not empire.
Daughter.
I said:
“Then decide what you want her to read about what you did next.”
Not what he did before.
That could not be erased.
What next.
He cooperated.
Not completely at first.
Then more.
Hale Shipping’s legitimate divisions separated from criminal routes.
Private security contracts audited.
Illegal gambling operations shut.
Several associates walked away.
Some threatened him.
Grant did not use me or Grace as justification.
Important.
He said publicly:
“I am responsible for choices I made before my daughter existed.”
Good.
Then one night my phone rang.
Grant.
2:14 a.m.
I almost ignored it.
Answered.
“Emily.”
His voice sounded wrong.
“What happened?”
“Victor’s attorney gave prosecutors another file.”
My stomach tightened.
“What file?”
“A recording.”
“Of?”
“Our divorce.”
I sat up.
Victor had secretly recorded conversations with Grant’s lawyers during settlement negotiations.
One voice belonged to Grant.
My heart pounded.
Then Grant said:
“I need you to hear what I said about you before you decide anything else about me.”
The recording was from two years earlier.
May you like
The week our marriage ended.
And according to Grant, it was worse than I remembered.
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