Russell Kane rose when I entered.
He was older than Victor by at least twenty years, tall but slightly stooped, with silver hair and a face lined by both authority and fatigue. I remembered him from the charity dinner as sharp and amused. Tonight he looked less like a chairman than a man who had been waiting too long to correct a mistake.
“Lauren Bellamy,” he said.
Not hello. Not Mrs. Langford.
My name, spoken as if it had always mattered.
“Mr. Kane.”
“Russell, please.” He gestured to a chair by the fire. “I owe you more courtesy than formality.”
I sat carefully, the divorce folder still in my lap.
He noticed it. “I heard Victor moved quickly today.”
“That’s a polite way to describe it.”
A shadow crossed his face. “Men like Victor often mistake speed for strength. It works until they rush past the truth.”
Abigail placed the Bellamy documents on the table.
Russell did not touch them yet.
“Seven years ago,” he said, “you saved Meridian Harbor from a catastrophic acquisition. I asked Victor afterward why you were not on his advisory team.”
I remembered Victor’s answer before Russell gave it.
“He said you preferred charity work,” Russell said. “He said business made you anxious.”
I laughed once, quietly. There was no humor in it.
“My father taught me freight math when other girls were learning piano. Business never made me anxious. Being dismissed did.”
Russell’s gaze sharpened with something like regret.
“I believed him because it was convenient. I liked Victor. He was ambitious, polished, disciplined. He knew how to make older men feel they had discovered him.”
“That sounds like Victor.”
“Years later, when Langford Capital rose faster than made sense, I began to wonder what foundation he was standing on.”
I looked toward the documents. “My father’s.”
“Yes.”
The word landed softly, but it cracked something open.
I thought of my father in his office, sleeves rolled up, pencil behind his ear. He had smelled of coffee and motor oil and peppermint gum. He used to say a company was only as good as the promises it kept when no one important was watching.
Victor had taken those promises and built a tower over them.
“What do you want from me?” I asked.
Russell did not answer immediately. He walked to the window. Beyond the glass, the river moved darkly, carrying the reflections of the city in broken lines.
“I want the truth before my board votes,” he said. “I want to know whether Victor acquired Bellamy Freight lawfully. I want to know whether the signatures attached to those transfers are valid. And if they are not, I want you to decide what happens next.”
Me.
Not Victor. Not a room of lawyers. Me.