Chapter 10 - The Open Road
The federal agents led Arthur out of the boardroom in quiet, humiliating silence. He didn't look back at the board members, and he didn't look at his brother. He simply stared straight ahead as the heavy oak doors closed behind him for the final time.
Victor stood near the window, leaning on his cane, looking out at the sprawling Dallas skyline under a clearing sky. The morning sun was finally breaking through the clouds, catching the glass of the thirty-second-floor windows and turning the city into a brilliant expanse of gold and steel.
"I'm sorry about your father, Ethan," Victor said quietly, without turning around. "We were enemies once. But he kept his word to the city, and I failed to keep mine to myself."
"My father respected your drive, Victor," I said, walking over to stand beside him. "He just hated the road you chose to get there."
Victor let out a slow, tired breath, offering a faint, self-deprecating nod. "Tell your wife congratulations on the baby," he said softly, turning toward the door. "And tell her she's got more spine than anyone in this room."
With that, the old man tapped his cane against the carpet and walked out of the boardroom, leaving behind the wreckage of a twenty-year grudge.
The board members quietly dispersed within ten minutes, leaving only Claire, Miriam, and myself in the sunlit room. The red-stamped forensic audit binder still sat on the mahogany table, its pages no longer a weapon of betrayal, but the foundation of a cleansed house.
Claire walked over to me, leaning her head against my shoulder as we looked out at the traffic moving along the highway far below.
"It's over," she whispered, her hand resting safely on her stomach. "Grant is facing trial, Arthur is in federal custody, and the company is secure."
"Not completely over," I said, gently kissing the top of her head.
Claire pulled back, looking up at me with a raised eyebrow. "What do you mean? What's left?"
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a single, brass key attached to a worn leather tag stamped with faded letters: Yellow Cab 27 - Mercer Transit.
"Grant's arrest left a vacancy in the executive committee," I said, a slow smile touching my lips. "And Arthur's exit means we need a new chief operating officer who actually knows how this company was built from the ground up."
Claire laughed—a bright, genuine sound that chased away the last remaining shadows in the room. "You're not seriously going to make Miriam run the daily logistics while you drive a vintage taxi around Dallas, are you?"
"Not a taxi," I said, wrapping my arm around her waist as we walked toward the private elevator. "Just an inspection tour. My father always said you can't run a transit empire from a desk if you don't know what the road feels like."
The elevator doors opened, sliding away to reveal the private car waiting to take us home. But as we stepped inside, my phone buzzed against my leg with an incoming text message from an unknown local number.
May you like
The Addison hotel garage security footage from three weeks ago hasn't been made public yet, Mr. Mercer, the text read. And the man your wife was really meeting isn't Arthur.
I stared at the screen as the elevator doors began to close, the digital numbers ticking downward toward the ground floor.
