Chapter 6 - THE SECOND DINNER
Grant survived an overdose of prescription sedatives and insisted he had not taken them willingly.
Toxicology suggested the dose had been crushed into coffee sometime after he reached the warehouse.
He refused to identify who met him there, claiming he remembered only a voice
and the smell of expensive cedar cologne. Jessie knew Lucas wore a cedar-based fragrance.
Federal agents would not accept scent as evidence, and neither would a court.
Jessie needed something Lucas could not dismiss as coincidence, rumor, or the frightened memory of a compromised witness.
The missing document from the black case turned out to be a founder indemnity schedule listing
every person protected from certain shareholder claims. Lucas’s name had been handwritten onto a photocopy years later.
If Lucas could substitute the altered schedule for the original,
he might argue Jessie’s father had personally approved his early financing relationships with Sterling Global.
Flynn believed Lucas would attempt one final negotiation before investigators froze his accounts.
Jessie agreed, then surprised everyone by saying she wanted him to make that attempt.
Her plan was simple enough to sound reckless. She would let Lucas believe Wendy had lost control,
that Jessie feared a public scandal, and that she might trade silence for a clean exit.
Agent Price objected to any unsupervised meeting. Jessie answered that she did not want unsupervised anything.
She wanted microphones, cameras, federal observation, and the safest trap money could legally buy.
The invitation went out through Lucas’s attorney. Jessie requested a private dinner at a Meridian hotel suite,
supposedly because she no longer trusted Wendy or Sterling Global’s board.
Lucas accepted within twelve minutes. He demanded that Flynn stay away,
believing the meeting would fail if another powerful man stood between him and Jessie.
At seven that evening, Jessie entered the suite wearing a simple black dress and a
concealed recording transmitter approved by federal investigators. Two rooms away, Agent Price monitored every word.
Lucas arrived alone but left two bodyguards in the elevator lobby. He poured himself sparkling water,
smiled at Jessie’s bandaged hand, and called the estate incident “unfortunate theater.”
Jessie forced herself not to react. She said Sterling Global could still survive if the scandal remained narrow,
but only if Lucas stopped financing Wendy and released his claims against her shares.
He laughed softly. “You still think this is about Wendy.” The sentence confirmed more than he intended,
and Jessie allowed a calculated silence to make him fill it.
Lucas explained that Wendy had become useful after Jessie’s father died because she wanted status more than control.
He supplied liquidity, encouraged aggressive borrowing, and watched her dependency grow.
“She stole because I showed her how easy it was,” he said.
“Then she borrowed because I made sure she had nowhere else to go.”
Jessie kept her face still while fury moved through her chest.
She asked whether the marriage arrangement had also been Wendy’s idea. Lucas smiled wider.
He admitted he proposed it after learning about the stewardship shares. Marriage, a voting pool,
and public pressure would have placed Jessie’s eventual control inside a structure Lucas could dominate.
“You were never the bride,” he said. “You were the last signature.”
The words landed harder than the grip he had placed on her wrist the previous night.
Jessie asked about Grant and the warehouse. Lucas’s expression changed by half a degree,
enough for someone watching closely to notice but not enough to prove guilt.
He denied drugging Grant yet admitted sending the forged Meridian document to make him remove the archive case.
“People move faster when they think the powerful already agreed,” he said.
Then Lucas leaned forward and offered Jessie ten million dollars, immunity through private settlements,
and a seat on a restructured board if she withdrew her complaints.
Jessie said she wanted something better: the original altered indemnity schedule and proof that Wendy authorized the shell-company transfers.
Lucas studied her, recognizing greed where he hoped to find fear.
He removed a phone from his coat and displayed photographs of signed payment instructions.
Jessie recognized Wendy’s handwriting and Grant’s countersignature on several pages.
Before Jessie could ask him to send the images, Lucas realized she had guided him too easily.
His eyes dropped toward the seam of her dress where the transmitter wire was hidden.
He stood abruptly, seized Jessie’s forearm, and pulled her toward him.
Jessie drove her heel into his shin, twisted free, and knocked the table between them.
Lucas lunged again, but the suite door opened almost instantly.
Agent Price entered with federal officers while Flynn’s security team restrained the bodyguards outside.
Lucas froze beside the overturned table. Jessie’s sleeve had torn at the shoulder,
but she remained standing. Price informed him that the conversation had been lawfully monitored.
For the first time, Lucas looked old rather than powerful.
He demanded an attorney, then stared at Jessie with an expression emptied of charm.
May you like
Jessie lifted the phone officers had recovered from the carpet.
“You were right about one thing,” she said. “I was the last signature. I just signed nothing.”
