“How could you?” he growled at me.
“How could I what?” I asked. My mind was reeling. Did this have something to do with Alissa? All I’d done was hang out with her all morning. What could possibly make him this angry?
“Don’t play dumb with me, Jackson. How could you go behind my back and try to buy the Carver Company yourself? All that bullshit about not trusting Nick, while it was you who was being a deceptive little shit?”
“Did he tell you that? You believe that I would lie to you for financial gain? Have you lost your fucking mind? Put me down, you gorilla, and we’ll talk about this.” His hands didn’t loosen on my shirt. God, he was really pissed.
Fucking Nick. I hated that bastard. This had probably been his idea all along, to drive a wedge between brothers so that our company would fail.
“No, he didn’t tell me that. He gave me a goddamn recording of the conversation. I have your fucking voice on tape, telling him that you want to buy his company without involving our business. That’s fucking evidence, Jackson.”
Shit. Nick had recorded our conversation and was trying to make it look like I wanted to keep the profits for myself. “Fuck man, I swear to God I can explain, but you’re seriously hurting me. Get a hold of yourself.”
“Tell me,” he said, pushing me further into the wall. “Tell me how the fuck he got that recording.”
“Jason, you know I don’t want to buy that company. I have always thought this was a bad deal. I don’t care how many times the reports come back clean, Nick is a lying, deceitful sack of shit, and there is something crooked in that business. I just haven’t found it yet. I went to his office and offered to buy him out personally because I don’t want his company to be a liability to our company.”
He still had me in a death grip, but I could see that my words were starting to sink in.
“You and the rest of the board wouldn’t listen to me when I said that this whole thing was a bad idea. You know that my vote alone can’t override a majority decision. So I offered him more money, my personal assets, because I wanted to protect the company that you and I have worked so damn hard to build together. If I owned it personally, and it went bad, I would have simply buried it and taken the financial loss myself. If I was wrong, and the company was a success, I could have merged it into our joint business any time. I would never fucking steal from you, Jason. Never.
I’m telling you, that man is a crook. He wouldn’t accept my offer, which makes me even more suspicious of him. He should have sold the business to the highest bidder, but he didn’t, which means that he wants Hayes Enterprises specifically to buy him out. He has to have a reason for that, and now, from what you’ve told me, I’m guessing that driving a wedge between us is a big part of that plan.”
Jason’s eyes widened, and he took a step back. It was like something had finally clicked in his brain, and he was processing the fact that he had his brother pinned against a brick wall in an alley. His hands relaxed.
“Oh God, Jackson. I’m sorry; are you okay?” He was in some odd emotional state between rage and horror, and if I wasn’t terrified, it might have been funny. I would not ever want to be on Jason’s bad side.
I nodded that I was. I bent over with my hands on my knees trying to return my breathing to a normal speed. “Fuck man. I thought you were going to kill me.” A nervous laugh escaped my lips. “All that over a business transaction? Remind me never to screw you over. Seriously.” I could see that he was returning to his usual senses.
“You’re that sure that this is a bad idea?” he asked. “You really would have bought him out just so that you could take the risk on yourself?”
“Yes, Jason,” I said. “I’m sorry I didn’t discuss it further with you before I went to him, but you were backing the board’s decision, and I thought you had your mind made up. I was pretty sure that he wouldn’t sell to me anyway, and I didn’t want to drag you any further into this mess.”
“Well shit,” he said, finally laughing like the brother I was used to. “Next time just come tell me that we’re not fucking buying the business, and I’ll vote with you. If you really feel that strongly about it, I won’t go against you. You’re not usually wrong, and even if you are, I’d rather be wrong with you than right with a man like Nick Carver. I knew you didn’t like him, but I had no idea you were that serious about it.”
“He’s up to no good, Jason. I can’t prove it, but I know it in my very bones. We should not be buying that company.”
“Fine man, we’ll go call a meeting with the board right now. I’ll change my vote, and we’ll cancel the deal.” He looked at me then and laughed. “Well, maybe we should get you back in a suit first, and you need to shave. You’re scruffy as shit, brother. How’s the jaw feel? Ben said you got hit pretty hard.”
My head snapped up. “Who’s Ben?”
Jason
Fuck. I was doing a lot of screwing up today. Jackson had just told me that he was trying to protect my stupid ass from financial ruin and then I went and blurted out that I’d been trying to protect his stupid ass from physical ruin. We were a matched pair weren’t we?
“Ben’s the bodyguard that I hired to protect you while you were doing this homeless thing,” I admitted. “He’s the one that jumped on the guy in the shelter. He’s been following you around since Tuesday night.”
I was afraid he’d be pissed, but he was doubled over in laughter.
“I wondered why the fuck some homeless guy would jump in on my fight. You hired a bodyguard to watch me be homeless for a week? That shit is too funny.” He was gasping for breath and there were tears running down his cheeks. “And here I thought I was doing it all on my own. I was actually kind of proud of myself. I should have known I couldn’t do it.” He was getting his laughter under control, but there was a hint of disappointment in his eyes. He must have been taking this man versus world struggle more seriously than I thought.
“Speaking of which, we’re going to start eating three meals a day at this restaurant that I found. Well, two meals a day, because I don’t think she’s open for breakfast, but she should be because she makes the best French toast in the world.” Being homeless had clearly gone to his head. “What on earth are you rambling on about?” I asked, totally confused.
“Alissa,” he said, as if that explained everything. “She makes amazing French toast.”
Chapter 9: The New Plan
Jackson
Jason and I decided that we needed to sit and talk for a while. Obviously, we were going to have to come up with a new plan. We needed to call a board meeting, but I wanted to have the whole thing worked out ahead of time. If Jason and I both voted “no” to buying the Carver Company, then we would no longer have a majority and the negotiations would end immediately. Together, we controlled sixty percent of the vote. When we were in agreement, we could pretty much run the company however we wanted.
There were four other board members, Robert, Kayla, Nithin, and Kristin, who were also investors in the company. We could run the company without them, but we’d learned that it was better to have people on the board who had a vested interest in the business. It was also good to have a second opinion, or in this case four opinions. They brought diversity to the table, and we were stronger for it.
The Carver deal had come to us originally through Robert. He saw Nick as an up-and-coming powerhouse, so he’d monitored his businesses for the last three years or so. When he felt that Nick had acquired enough experience to be noteworthy, we’d assigned Kayla the task of beginning the official due diligence to decide whether to make the acquisition.
Jason and I settled into a coffee shop where we could speak uninterrupted and begin our planning. The way I saw it, we had two options. One, call a meeting immediately and stop the deal or two, pretend for a while that we were still going to move forward. If we did the latter, Jason could perhaps flush out Nick’s true motives. Either way, I felt a million times better now that I had Jason on my side. It meant a lot to me that he was willing to take my word for it.
“So, here’s what I was thinking,” Jason said. “We should hold off on making any official decisions for now. Let the board continue to think that you’re in Hawaii. I’ll call Nick, and you can listen in on speaker. I can pretend that I’m still mad at you, and hopefully, I can get him to tell me what he really wants. We can make a decision based on what he says.”
“I think that’s smart. I am worried about both Bob and Kayla. We know she’s always been pushy, but they were both really adamant about buying this company. It doesn’t sit well with me. I think it would be best if we kept all of this information between us for now.”
“Agreed. So what are we going to do about you?” He laughed.