Chapter 6: What Brothers Do
Callum called me before Daniel could reach him.
"I heard about last night," he said.
"Are you all right?"
His voice was exactly as it always was.
Warm.
Slightly careful.
The voice of a younger brother who had spent his whole life being thoughtful around me.
"I'm fine," I said.
"I need to see you.
Today."
"Of course.
Lunch?"
"My office.
Two o'clock."
A brief pause.
"That sounds formal."
"It is."
He arrived at two on the dot, which was unusual.
Callum was habitually ten minutes late to everything.
He came in with his coat over his arm and a look on his face that was trying very hard to be relaxed.
He sat down across from me.
I put the subscription agreement on the desk between us.
He looked at it for a long moment without touching it.
"Vivienne—"
"Don't." I kept my voice level.
"Don't start with my name.
Start with an explanation."
He pressed his lips together.
"It's more complicated than it looks."
"It looks like your signature on a document designed to strip our family's company of everything it owns.
Tell me how that's complicated."
"Adrian came to me two years ago." He set his coat down on the chair beside him.
"He told me you were planning to restructure the holding company.
That you were going to dilute my stake.
That by the time you were done, my forty percent would be worth a fraction of what it should be."
"That's a lie."
"I know that now."
"Did you know it then?"
He didn't answer immediately.
That was its own answer.
"He showed me documents," Callum said.
"Board minutes.
Memos.
They looked real."
"They weren't."
"I understand that now, Vivienne.
But I was—" He stopped.
"I was angry.
I had felt for years that you ran everything and consulted me on nothing.
That I was a minority shareholder in name only."
"So you decided to help him take it all."
"I decided to protect what was mine." His voice tightened.
"I didn't fully understand what the structure would do.
He told me it was a defensive measure."
"Four million pounds, Callum."
The color left his face.
"That's what you were going to receive when it completed," I said.
"Frances Aldgate has the payment schedule.
She has everything."
He stood up.
Sat back down.
His hand went to the edge of the desk.
"I didn't know about the payment," he said.
"I swear to you.
I didn't know."
"Then what did you think you were signing?"
"A co-investment structure.
A way to build leverage if you ever tried to push me out." He looked at me directly for the first time since he had sat down.
"I didn't know he was going to use it to take the whole company.
I didn't know about the debt mechanism.
He told me it was protective."
"You signed documents you didn't fully understand because a man you knew was deceiving your sister told you I was planning to betray you."
He was quiet.
"Did you ever ask me?" I said.
"Did you ever once come to me and say — Vivienne, I'm worried about my position, I need to understand what you're planning?"
"No."
"Why not?"
His jaw worked.
"Because I was afraid of what you'd say."
I looked at my brother — really looked at him — and I saw something I hadn't expected to see.
Not calculation.
Not greed.
Something smaller and sadder than that.
A man who had spent years feeling like a guest in his own inheritance and had made a terrible choice because of it.
That didn't make it forgivable.
But it made it something I could understand.
"Here is what happens now," I said.
"You will provide a full written statement to Daniel Marsh detailing everything Adrian told you, every document he showed you, every conversation you had.
You will cooperate fully with whatever legal process follows."
"And if I do?"
"Then I will tell Daniel that you were manipulated.
That you didn't understand the full structure.
That you cooperated immediately and completely." I paused.
"I won't promise you there are no consequences.
But I will tell the truth about what I believe happened."
He looked at the document on the desk between us.
"He played us both," Callum said quietly.
"Yes," I said.
"He did."
Callum left an hour later with Daniel's card in his hand and something in his posture that looked like a man who had just put down something very heavy.
My phone rang as soon as the door closed.
It was Adrian.
"We need to talk," he said.
"About Meridian Crest."
"I know about Meridian Crest, Adrian."
A silence.
"Then you know I still have options," he said.
"Options that could make this very uncomfortable for your brother."
There it was.
"Say what you mean," I said.
"I mean that Callum's signature is on those documents.
Not mine.
If this goes to litigation, he is the exposed party.
Not me." His voice had recovered its steadiness.
"I'm giving you a chance to walk this back.
Restore the accounts.
Tear up the termination.
We go back to where we were, and Callum stays clean."
I let the silence sit for a moment.
"I'll think about it," I said.
"Don't think too long," Adrian said.
"I'm not a patient man."
He ended the call.
I looked out the window at the city below.
He thought he still had a move.
He thought Callum was his leverage.
May you like
What he didn't know was that Callum was already sitting in Daniel's office.
And that Frances Aldgate's courier had arrived at noon, exactly as promised.
