Chapter 6: The Call from the Bank
The call lasted four minutes.
Grant came back into the lobby looking like a different person.
The jacket was the same.
The champagne glass he picked up on the way past a table was the same.
But something behind his eyes had gone very quiet in the way that meant the calculations were running fast and none of them were coming out right.
Sloane was standing with Carter Voss and Douglas Hale near the elevator bank.
She watched Grant cross the lobby toward her.
She didn't move.
"I need to talk to you," Grant said.
"Privately."
"No," Sloane said.
"Sloane—"
"Whatever you want to say, say it here."
Grant looked at Douglas Hale.
Hale looked back at him with the particular expression of a man who has already decided something and is simply waiting for the formality to conclude.
Grant set the champagne glass down.
"The bank called the Phase Two note," he said.
"I know," Sloane said.
"I spoke with them this morning."
Something moved across his face.
"You spoke with them this morning."
"I've been speaking with them for three weeks.
Since I found the altered agreement in your home office." She said it simply, without emphasis.
"I knew what you were planning, Grant.
I've known for most of it."
The lobby was quiet enough that the reporters near the ribbon could hear every word.
None of them moved.
None of them wanted to.
"The permits," Grant said.
His voice was lower now.
The performance was entirely gone.
"Without Phase Two, the hotel's valuation—"
"Is reduced.
Yes." Sloane nodded.
"Which is why I filed for a compulsory permit transfer with the county office last Thursday.
On the grounds of fraudulent original registration." She paused.
"My attorney submitted documentation showing that Mercer Capital Development was used as the filing entity without my knowledge or consent, and that the permits were filed against a project I solely own." She looked at him steadily.
"The county has sixty days to rule.
My lawyers believe it will be closer to thirty, given the supporting documentation."
Grant stared at her.
"You've been building this for weeks," he said.
"I've been building this hotel for three years," Sloane said.
"I've been building this case for three weeks.
The difference is that only one of those things required me to falsify anything."
Douglas Hale cleared his throat.
"Mrs.
Mercer.
I'd like to arrange a call with my legal team and yours for Monday morning.
To discuss the investment structure going forward." He glanced at Grant once, briefly.
"Without complications."
"Of course," Sloane said.
Grant took one step toward her.
Carter Voss moved — not dramatically, just slightly forward, enough to be visible.
"You want me to beg," Grant said quietly.
"Is that it?
You want me to stand here and beg you in front of all of them."
"No," Sloane said.
"I want you to understand what you actually destroyed.
Because it wasn't just the hotel." She looked at him for a moment — not with hatred, not with satisfaction, but with something that looked almost like grief.
"We built something real once.
Before all of this.
And you chose this instead." She picked up her founder badge from where she'd set it on the edge of the reception desk and pinned it back to her jacket.
"I hope whatever you thought you were getting was worth it."
She turned to Douglas Hale.
"Shall we find somewhere quieter to talk?"
They walked toward the hotel's private meeting room together.
Grant didn't follow.
He stood in the center of the lobby — the lobby Sloane had designed, the floors she had chosen, the lighting she had approved — and his phone buzzed again.
He looked at the screen.
May you like
It was his personal attorney.
The message was three words: *Call me now.*
