Chapter 13 - The Man Grandfather Trusted
Thomas Reed had worked for my grandfather for twenty-two years.
He attended family funerals.
He knew my mother.
He sent me wedding gifts.
He had been in the room when the trust was restructured after my parents died.
And he had been quietly feeding Grant information.
At first, Grandfather refused to believe it.
Not emotionally.
Factually.
“Show me.”
Rachel did.
Emails.
Encrypted messages.
A payment trail.
Grant’s private company had sent “consulting fees” to a firm owned by Thomas’s son.
In exchange, Thomas explained the structure of my beneficial interests.
He could not transfer them.
He could not give Grant control.
But he told him enough to make Grant believe divorce could unlock value.
Grandfather sat completely still.
“Why?”
Rachel had the answer.
Thomas had accumulated gambling debts.
Large ones.
Grant discovered them.
Then turned weakness into leverage.
I watched my grandfather absorb the betrayal.
For the first time, he looked his age.
“I trusted him with everything.”
I reached for his hand.
“I know.”
He looked at me.
“Now I understand how you feel.”
That sentence stayed with me.
Betrayal was not about being foolish.
Sometimes trust was reasonable.
Sometimes the other person simply chose to abuse it.
Thomas was terminated.
His access was revoked.
The trust began reviewing years of transactions.
Grant lost another source of hidden advantage.
But he gained something else.
Desperation.
That evening, he requested to speak with me.
Rachel recommended recording the call.
Grant appeared on-screen alone.
He looked exhausted.
“I can help you.”
“With what?”
“Thomas.”
“We know about him.”
His face dropped.
“All of it?”
“Enough.”
He rubbed his forehead.
Then he said:
“Harbor North wasn’t the real buyer.”
Rachel leaned forward.
“What does that mean?”
Grant hesitated.
“The deal was structured for them to buy Crestline, then resell a division.”
“To whom?”
“I don’t know.”
“You negotiated the deal.”
“I didn’t know the ultimate party.”
Rachel’s expression tightened.
“What division?”
Grant looked at me.
“The neonatal equipment unit.”
My eyes shifted toward the NICU.
Crestline had recently developed specialized monitoring components used in neonatal care.
Beacon Crest was testing some of them.
“What was the resale price?”
Grant answered.
“Much higher.”
“How much?”
He swallowed.
“Potentially eighty million.”
Silence.
He had tried to sell Crestline for $38 million while a buyer planned to immediately carve out one division for more than twice that amount.
Grant had not only betrayed me.
Someone had been planning to cheat him too.
And whoever that buyer was had been willing to pay a fortune for neonatal technology.
May you like
Technology currently being used in hospitals like the one keeping our twins alive.
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