Chapter 8 - THE MAN WHO KEPT QUIET FOR THIRTY YEARS
Gerald Pike did not hold his ground long once subpoenas were mentioned.
He asked for a private meeting.
Richard refused privacy and brought counsel.
Faced with the letter, the founder agreement, the likely forged release, and the missing archive boxes, Gerald finally did what cowards often do when the past stops protecting them:
he tried to divide the dead.
“Your father believed Mercer would sink the company,” Gerald said. “He thought Thomas lacked the discipline for scale.”
“So he forged him out?”
Gerald rubbed both hands down his face.
“Bernard said Richard would understand later.”
“I’m understanding now.”
Gerald admitted that Bernard instructed him to prepare a release after Thomas refused a buyout.
Bernard then told Richard that Thomas had taken money and disappeared.
Gerald was ordered to bury the original founder documents, recast the cap table, and ensure no Mercer claim ever resurfaced.
“Why didn’t you say anything after Bernard died?”
Gerald looked tired enough to age in real time.
“Because by then Hale Urban was worth too much.”
It was not remorse.
It was arithmetic.
Richard dismissed him on the spot, placed him on leave, and ordered a full forensic review.
When he returned to the hospital that night, Diane did not stand or thank him.
She only listened as he told her the truth.
About Bernard.
About Gerald.
About the forged release.
About the value.
She stared at him as if he were speaking a foreign language.
“You’re telling me my father spent his life struggling while your company kept growing from something partly stolen from him?”
Richard didn’t flinch from it.
“Yes.”
Leo looked between them. “Does that mean Grandpa helped build your buildings?”
Richard swallowed.
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t you help us before?”
That question could not be answered with corporate records.
Richard knelt so he was eye level with the boy.
“Because I believed a lie and then got rich enough not to question it.”
Leo absorbed that with the solemnity only some children have.
“That’s bad,” he said.
May you like
Richard nodded.
“It is.”
