“The next packet will show you exactly why.” I nodded to my assistant, who handed out the second stack. “Davidson’s investments came from his father’s estate. That money is now tied up. Frozen.”
A chorus of groans rippled around the table.
“He needed the liquidity,” Lang muttered.
“And if he liquidated his stake now, just before partnership—” Linda began.
“He’d look like an idiot,” Alicia finished, crisp as a blade.
“Exactly,” I said.
Shore’s packet hit the table with a dull thud. “But even that doesn’t make sense. Why not wait until after the partnership to pull out?”
Farnsworth’s mouth tilted—slow, knowing. “Because he wouldn’t have gotten away with it.”
The room paused as the logic landed.
I leaned back, letting Farnsworth continue. He was surgical when it came to dismantling stupidity.
“Once the partnership finalizes, Elion’s valuation jumps.” He tapped the figures. “Falkirk validation pushes them into another bracket. If he sells after that? Every analyst in New York watches the move. SEC screens it. A post-merger audit becomes inevitable.”
Alicia nodded. “And that audit would expose everything. The shell companies. The R&D diversions. His father’s dispute. He’d be cooked.”
Linda added, “He couldn’t pull out after the partnership without looking like he was bailing on a rising company.”
Ashford, cautious as always, murmured, “He needed instability on the record first. Something he could point to later.”
“Exactly,” I said. “He needed documented volatility before the merger. A paper trail. Something that let him liquidate under the guise of responsible asset management.”
Lang swallowed. “He needed a reason to leave without looking like a fool.”
“And without anyone questioning what he was running from,” Alicia added.
Richter finally sagged back, realization dawning. “So he created a crisis.”
“He created noise,” I corrected. “Enough noise that when he pulled out, it wouldn’t look like abandonment. It would look like prudence.”
Shore exhaled. “Jesus.”
I flipped to the next page and let the numbers settle like ash.
“He sabotaged Ms.Sinclair,” I said. “Her team. Her reputation. Because he needed an excuse to flee a ship that wasn’t sinking. He needed to make it look like it was.”
Silence crackled around the table. Even Nathan looked off balance.
“So where does that leave Falkirk?” Lang asked skeptically.
“We move forward with the merger,” I said. I opened the final packet. “In fact, I have a preliminary contract prepared for us to review today. My intention is to announce the merger at this afternoon’s press conference—along with the official narrative regarding the breach. Falkirk and Elion both come outblameless. We recover trust, stabilize stock sentiment, and gain the momentum we projected three quarters ago.”
I leaned forward. “Not to mention the boost we were already expecting from bringing Elion in.”
Packets opened. Pages flipped. Heads bent.
Calculations rippled across the room like a current.
“There is no way Falkirk can accept these terms,” Nathan said, sliding the packet away from him like it was something diseased.
Shore barked a laugh. “We’re guaranteeing a minimum annual R&D budget of twenty million dollars—non-retractable, non-contingent on performance—for seven fiscal years?”
