Chapter 7: Everything His Father Built
Leonard's office was on the thirty-first floor.
Floor-to-ceiling windows.
A long conference table that had never, in my two previous visits, been used for anything other than holding stacks of bound reports.
Today it held three things: a legal pad, a pen, and a manila folder I recognized as a copy of my own.
Leonard was standing when we entered.
His general counsel, a woman named Patricia Howe, sat to his left.
She had a second folder in front of her and a pen already uncapped.
Julian saw Patricia and stopped walking.
"Dad." His voice shifted into something I had heard before — the tone he used when he needed his father to be reasonable.
Warm.
Slightly wounded.
"You didn't tell me this was going to be a formal meeting."
"Sit down, Julian," Leonard said.
Julian sat.
I sat across from him.
Patricia did not look up from her folder.
"I've reviewed the documentation Clara provided," Leonard said.
"Patricia has reviewed it independently.
We've also had outside counsel look at the transfer records from the sub-account." He placed one hand flat on the table.
"I want you to tell me, in this room, what those transfers were for."
Julian's jaw tightened.
"They were personal expenses."
"To whom?"
A pause.
"To Sienna.
For consulting work."
Patricia wrote something on her legal pad without comment.
"Consulting work," Leonard repeated.
"Billed to a Voss Capital sub-account.
Without disclosure to the board, without an executed consulting agreement, and without my knowledge as the account's primary holder." He looked at his son steadily.
"Is that your position?"
"Dad—"
"Is that your position, Julian?"
Julian's hand went to the table.
He didn't pick anything up.
"I can explain the structure of—"
"Patricia," Leonard said.
Patricia opened her folder.
"The transfers total two hundred and fourteen thousand dollars over eighteen months.
The receiving account is registered to a holding company incorporated in Delaware fourteen months ago.
The sole director of that company is Sienna Marsh." She looked up.
"There is no consulting agreement on file.
There is no board disclosure.
Under the terms of the company's operating agreement, unauthorized use of a jointly held capital account for personal disbursements constitutes a material breach and triggers the clawback provisions in Julian's compensation structure."
Julian's face had gone the color of old paper.
"You'd do this," he said.
He was looking at his father now, not at Patricia, not at me.
"To your own son."
"You did this," Leonard said.
"I'm responding to it."
"It was money.
It was my money—"
"It was not your money." Leonard's voice didn't rise.
It didn't need to.
"It was never solely your money.
You knew that when you opened the account.
You knew that when you made the first transfer.
And you knew it when you stood in a church two days ago and married a woman you were already planning to leave."
The room was very quiet.
Julian turned to me.
The wounded warmth was entirely gone now.
What replaced it was something colder.
"You went to my father," he said.
"On our wedding day.
You went to my father."
"I went to him the morning of our flight," I said.
"After you told me Sienna was coming with us."
"You destroyed everything over a business trip—"
"It wasn't a business trip," I said.
"Sienna told me herself.
Last night.
On the phone." I paused.
"She told me about the cohabitation clause.
The six-month plan.
The test at the airport to see how much I'd accept." I watched his face.
"She was quite thorough."
Julian went very still.
"She called you," he said.
"She did."
Something shifted behind his eyes.
Not remorse.
The particular calculation of a man deciding whether his ally had just become a liability.
"Whatever she told you—"
"I recorded it," I said.
Patricia's pen stopped moving.
Julian stared at me.
"You recorded it," he said slowly.
"My state allows single-party consent," I said.
"My lawyer confirmed it before I answered the call."
Leonard stood up from the table.
He walked to the window and stood with his back to the room, looking out over Midtown.
"Patricia," he said quietly.
"Call outside counsel.
Tell them we're moving forward."
"Yes," she said.
Julian pushed back his chair.
"Dad.
Dad, stop.
We can handle this internally — there's no reason to bring outside—"
"Sit down, Julian."
"I'm not going to sit down while you—"
"Then stand." Leonard turned from the window.
May you like
"But you will listen."
Julian stood beside his chair with his hands at his sides and listened to his father tell him, in precise and specific language, exactly what was going to happen next.
