“That’s—those documents areproprietary—”
“Confidential between you and your business partners,” Ollie agreed. He wished he’d worn suspenders so he could hook his thumbs in them. He was rocking back on his heels, almost giddy.
His mother would probably say that the way he felt right now was unchristian. But she’d say it while feeling the exact same way, so Ollie was taking that criticism from his subconscious with a healthy heap of salt.
“I admit, I probably shouldn’t have seen them,” he went on.
Then he put his hand on Ty’s shoulder and continued, “But I think your business partner will forgive me just this once.”
Ty blinked at him. “What?”
Ollie said gently, “You inherited your father’s shares, Ty.”
“I’m inbusinesswith this asshole?”
“Not as much as you used to be.” Ollie pulled out the next set of documents. “See, some of the business partnerships they entered together had shotgun clauses. Either your dad or Mr. Chiu could offer to buy the other out at any time, but the flip side was the other could buy out their share at the same price plus one dollar. Kind of a stalemate. Until your dad got dementia.”
Chiu was sputtering again. “That’s absurd.” He turned to Atkins as though she were some kind of authority who would stop Ollie from hanging out all his dirty laundry. “How was I supposed to know how bad the dementia had gotten?”
“You paid ten grand to take full ownership of a business that was started with fifty grand of seed money two decades ago and had tripled in size first.” Ollie paused. “And which fired me this week, by the way. I take that personally. But I’m going to guess that you wouldn’t have soldyourshares for ten thousand dollars.”
Atkins leaned back in her chair, looking back and forth between Ollie and Chiu. “I’m going to give you three the room,” she said after a moment. “Try not to burn the place down. I hear the firefighters are fifteen minutes out.”
Ollie gave in to the urge and offered her a fist on her way out. She tapped it with her own.
Then the door closed and Chiu crossed his arms. “What do you want?”
Ah, yes. The art of the trade. Ollie looked at Ty. “You’re up, babe.”
“Me?” Ty shook his head, half laughing. “You did all the work. You didn’t get this far?”
Ollie shrugged blithely. “It’s your money. I have a few starting suggestions, if you’re stuck.”
“No, no.” Ty shook his head. “You keep your hands clean. Mine are already….” He looked down at his hands and paused. For the first time Ollie noticed the blood under his fingernails.
He really must have had a weird day.
“Mr. Chiu,” Ty said when he looked up again, “you’re going to resign your position as councilor immediately. You’re going to sell me that plot of land you own on Main Street for what you paid for it, plus say five percent inflation. And for that I’ll forget about you screwing my father out of potentially millions of dollars and leave your reputation intact. Well. Somewhat.”
Chiu balked. “That’s it?”
Ollie fucking hoped not. He’d worked way too hard to let Chiu off that easy.
“No.” Ty straightened his shoulders. “We’re going to have an independent forensic audit done on all the assets you and my father both have an interest in. And then we are going to sell them all. You can buy me out if you want, but I won’t remain in business with you.”
Ah. He was just waiting to hit Chiu where it really hurt—his wallet. “Those businesses are worth millions. There’s no way I can come up with that kind of capital—”
“Then we’ll sell them. Or we can sell some of them and you can use your share to buy me out of the rest. Or you can find another business partner to buy me out. Either way, we will never be in business together.”
Vindictiveness looked good on him. Ollie would have to tell him so later.
“Fine,” Chiu snapped. “Anything else you want while you’re at it? Maybe a kidney?”
“No.” Ty paused, winced, then said, “Actually, wait. Sit down for a second.”
For the first time since before the meeting, Ollie looked at the blood stain on the front of Ty’s shirt.
Frowning, Chiu crossed his arms. “What are you trying to pull?”
