Zach reached the bar, grabbed a glass, and held it out for Nate to pour him a generous drink. “Yeah, but once I’ve got it, I can use it in the Loop.”
“Jesus,” Nate muttered, passing me my drink on his way to the door. “Dad said seven p.m. sharp. We’d better go sit down, but you arenotusing a snowmobile in the Loop, Zachary Edward Westwood.”
Zach scrunched his nose up, reminding me exactly of what he used to look like twenty-five years ago when he’d been only three. “Says who?”
“Says me,” I said. We strode down the hall and took our seats around the long table in the dining room. “Trust me, I understand the urge. I had to take a cab out here tonight, but I’m not going to be able to find a lawyer willing to represent you for mowing down pedestrians on a snowmobile in a commercial district.”
Zach sighed, but then Dad walked in and he dropped it. Our father, Douglas Westwood, did not take kindly toanticsof anykind. Even joking about them was apparently unbecoming of a family like ours.
“Boys,” Dad said as he took his seat, still as unnervingly smiley as he had been these last couple months. “Thank you all for being here. How are you? Everybody have a good day?”
Normally, dinner was a no-business zone, but Zach wasted no time violating the rule as soon as Dad asked the question. “Actually, I didn’t have a particularly good day, but it’s because of an interesting acquisition I wanted to talk to you guys about.”
“Aninteresting acquisition.” Jesse, the other twin, smirked as he looked around the table. “Now there’s an oxymoron if I’ve ever heard one.”
“What makes it so interesting?” I asked Zach, not about to get into the inevitable argument with Jesse about why we had a passion for what we did right now.
Zach shrugged. “Okay, maybeinterestingwas the wrong word, but it’s kind of painful for me and it’s probably going to be a major conflict of interest, so if wedotry to acquire the company, someone else may have to take the lead. I doubt I’ll be able to.”
“Well, that narrows it down to everything you’ve ever said,” Nate replied. “Is it another bar you want to buy because the owner gave you a free drink?”
I chuckled at Nate but didn’t look away from Zach. He didn’t seem to be joking this time. “How can an acquisition possibly be painful? That’s what you do for a living, little brother.”
Zach rolled his eyes at Nate. “This is serious.”
“So was that bar,” he said, deadpan.
Will snorted into his glass, but Zach kept going, glancing mostly between Dad and me. “Colin Thayer called me today.”
As soon as Zach said the name, Nate frowned, all traces of humor vanishing from his features. “Colin Thayer, as inThayer Steelworks?”
“Yep,” Zach sighed.
I leaned back, my interest definitely piqued. Thayer Steelworks was a generational Chicago empire. One that had nearly imploded five years ago during a scandal so nuclear, it had made Enron look polite. Their entire executive team had been fired and the board ran the company while the CEO, Colin’s father, had gone to trial.
He’d been convicted too. As far as I knew, he was still in prison.
“Okay,” I said slowly. “So what did Colin say? And what’s his role in the company? If you’re bringing him up in the context of acquisitions, I’m assuming he’s got some sort of say around there?”
“Yeah, he’s their CFO,” Zach said.
I tried not to visibly recoil. “He’s twenty-six.”
“Exactly,” Nate said. “That’s insane.”
“You’re thirty-two,” Zach reminded him. “AndourCFO.”
“Yes,” Nate said coolly. “The difference is that I know what I’m doing.”
“Hear, hear.” Jesse lifted his glass. “To self-awareness. And modesty.”
“I’ll bite, though.” Nate kept his attention on Zach. “What’s going on over there?”
Zach let out a harsh exhale, grimacing. He took a long sip of his scotch before he finally gave us a breakdown of their conversation. “According to Colin, their COO and CEO hate each other. There’s a lot of infighting. The CEO is, and I quote, ‘a moron.’ The board is panicking. Their fourth quarter was fiscally catastrophic and Q1 will be worse. Investors are pulling out left and right.”
“So it’s dying,” I summed up.
“It’s bleeding out,” Zach corrected. “Colin wants to sell before it flatlines and takes them all with it.”
