Chapter 6 - The Desperate Counterstrike
Three days after the boardroom takeover, the financial backlash began to curdle into sheer desperation.
I was sitting at my new executive desk in the corner office—the space where Grant had once hung a ridiculous oil portrait of himself—reviewing the revised blueprints for the North Carolina state infrastructure bid. The door opened, and David walked in, holding a steaming mug of tea and a thick yellow legal envelope.
“Our legal team just received a service notice,” David said, setting the envelope beside my laptop with a dry, humorless smirk.
I didn't even look up from my screen. “Grant found a lawyer stupid enough to take his case on contingency?”
“Not just a lawyer. Richard Lawson,” David replied, pulling out a leather armchair and sitting down across from me. “Lawson is the slickest emergency injunction specialist in the state. He’s filed a civil suit in Mecklenburg County Superior Court claiming 'unlawful asset seizure, fraudulent inducement, and spousal extortion' regarding the Lake Norman villa and your holding company’s voting shares.”
I set my pen down, finally looking at the envelope. “Extortion? He signed the confession in front of two uniformed county deputies.”
“Lawson is claiming Grant signed under extreme psychological distress, facing duress manufactured by a rival forensic investigator—me—and an estranged spouse,” David explained calmly. “They’re angling for a temporary restraining order to freeze Rowan-Cole’s operating accounts before our primary municipal bid closes on Friday.”
I leaned back in my chair, feeling a cold, calculating fire kindle in my chest. Grant wasn't trying to win the house back; he knew he had lost it. He was trying to poison our reputation just long enough to destroy our municipal bid, hoping the chaos would force us into giving him a million-dollar exit settlement.
“Where is he staying?” I asked quietly.
“A cheap extended-stay motel near the airport,” David said. “Sabrina left him forty-eight hours ago after her bank accounts were frozen. From what my field investigators tell me, she’s currently moving her remaining personal luggage back into her mother’s house in Raleigh.”
I picked up the phone on my desk and pressed the speed-dial for our chief legal counsel.
“Claire?” our lead attorney answered instantly.
“Call Richard Lawson’s office,” I commanded, my voice dropping into a register of quiet, lethal precision. “Tell him we will meet him and his client in Judge Vance’s chambers at 2:00 p.m. today for an emergency preliminary hearing. And make sure Lawson knows that if he doesn't withdraw the suit by 2:30, we will release the unredacted audio recordings from the bookshelf camera directly to the state bar’s ethics committee.”
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David smiled softly from across the desk. “You recorded the lawyer threats too?”
“I recorded everything, David,” I said, standing up and reaching for my tailor-made blazer. “Grant forgot that an architect never leaves out a single structural detail.”
