Tommy Gabrini: The Grace Factor (9 page)

Tommy shook his head.
 
The stupidity of some people never ceased to
amaze him.
 
“Any victims here?”

“No.
 
Unless you count your ex-wife and your daughter.
 
He decided he couldn’t repeat that pattern
from his Detroit days, it would be too suspicious.
 
So he changed his pattern.
 
He decided your ex was going to be his ticket
up, and Destiny, with her dear daddy dead and his millions within his grasp,
was going to be his ticket out.
 
But he
needed somebody to take you out first.”

“Mr. Gabrini, hello.”
 
It was Principal Blake on the line.
 
“I apologize for the delay.
 
How are you, sir?”

“I have a situation.”

“A situation, sir?”

“Go to my daughter’s classroom and
sit with her until I arrive.
 
Don’t
interrupt her activities, but keep your eyes on her.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Inform your staff that if her
stepfather step foot at that school, he is to be detained and law enforcement
notified.
 
I have my men stationed around
the school, so he shouldn’t get through, but just in case.”

“Dear Lord.
 
Yes, sir.
 
I’ll get right on it, Mr. Gabrini.”

Tommy ended the call.
 
And leaned his head back, his thick hair
dropping across his forehead, as he sighed with a frustrated sigh.
 
He pinched his temple with his finger and
thumb, and closed his eyes.
 
His long
lashes draped over them.

Branson Nash looked at him.
 
People thought of Tommy as just a pretty boy,
but he’d never met a tougher man.
 
He’d
witnessed him nearly break a man in two, when that man did him wrong.
  
People underestimated Tommy’s strength because
of his beauty, but Branson never made that mistake.
 
He was Tommy’s chief of security for that
very reason.
 
“There’s another thing,
boss,” he said.

Tommy looked at him with weary eyes.

“Sorry to spring it on you.”

“Spring away,” Tommy said.
 
“It’s apparently the season for it.”
   

“It’s your ex-wife,” Branson said.

Tommy showed more than a passing
interest.
 
Branson had heard he still had
a thing for his ex.
 
Tommy’s expression
alone made Branson understand why people thought so. “What about her?” Tommy
asked.

“Apparently she and Ed got into it a
couple days ago, while you were in Vienna.
 
I only found out this morning when I got the report about Ed.
 
I contacted Will Potts, her front gate chief,
and told him to bar Ed from coming onto the premises.
 
He said Ed was already barred from coming
onto the premises.”

Tommy was surprised by this.
 
“Already barred?
 
Why?”

“He said Ed sped away from the
premises two nights ago.
 
He called to
make sure Mrs. Jefferson was okay, and that’s when she ordered him to bar Ed.
Of course I ordered him to detain that fucker if he showed up again, but he was
already on the watch list.
 
But the thing
is,” Branson added, “Potts says Mrs. Jefferson has been wearing sunglasses for
the past two days, ever since Ed sped away, as if she’s hiding something.
 
Like a beating.”

Tommy’s wide jaw tightened.
 
He pressed the car’s intercom button.
 
“Get me to Marimount,” he ordered the driver,
“and then to Trammel.”

“Yes, sir,” the driver said, and
increased his speed.
 

Barry Nagarta knocked once and then
entered Grace’s office, leaving the door open behind him.
 
This was to be a quick drop by, as he and
Grace both had a lot of work to do.
 
Grace
was just getting off the phone.
 
But when
Barry saw she was still wearing those sunglasses at midday, his suspicion was
confirmed.
 
She was definitely hiding
something.

“Were you right?” he asked as he
headed toward her desk.
 
“Is it a whisper
campaign?”

Grace leaned back in her chair.
 
“Whisper my ass,” she said.
 
“More like out-and-out sabotage.
 
Every one of the vendors we lost were told
that contracting out with Trammel is tantamount to shooting in the dark.”

“How so?” Barry asked.

“Their orders may not arrive on
time.
 
Our trucks are no longer
guaranteed.
 
And the clincher?
 
We are at this very moment quietly preparing
papers to file Chapter 7.”

Barry was shocked.
 
“Liquidation?
 
Are you serious?”

“Every one of those vendors told me
the same story.
 
Trammel is bleeding
money.
 
Trammel is in complete decline
and on the verge of total collapse.
 
Trammel is bankrupt.”

Barry sat down.
 
“But who would tell such lies?
 
And why didn’t the board of directors tell
you this was what was happening?
 
You’re
chairman of that board!”

“They didn’t tell me,” Grace said,
“because they’re the ones spreading the rumors.
 
They’re the saboteurs”

Barry was confused.
 
And then he understood.
 
“A takeover?” he asked Grace.

“A hostile takeover, yes,” she
responded.
 
“That’s the only conclusion I
can reach.”

“But why destroy the company’s reputation
in the process?
 
That doesn’t make
sense.”

“It does,” Grace said, “if they
intend to wrestle controlling interest so they can immediately turn around and
sell it to a corporate raider.
 
They
undoubtedly already have a buyer.”

“And the corporate raider would have
no desire to keep the company going,” Barry said, understanding.
 
“He’d want to liquidate its assets anyway.”

Grace nodded.
 
“Or build back up the company and then sell
it to the highest bidder.”

“But how can the board pull this off
without you?” Barry asked.
 
“You’re the
majority shareholder.”
 
Tommy saw to that when he turned his shares
over to you
, he wanted to add.

“I am majority shareholder easily,”
Grace responded, “but during the last recession, I had to forfeit shares in the
company to keep the business afloat.
 
My
fifty-eight percent is now forty-eight percent.
 
The other board members, those who’d push for this takeover, have a
combined forty-two percent of the shares.
 
Ten percent of the shares are owned by two additional seats at the
table: one with seven percent, the other with three.”

“Who are they?” Barry asked.

“Sonny Lockett owns seven percent.”

“The eccentric Sonny Lockett?
 
You think you can get him to throw his
support to you?”

“I’m going to work my butt off to win
that support.
 
Otherwise, I’m screwed.”

“He hasn’t committed?”

“No.
 
The board hasn’t even called for a vote yet.
 
And they won’t until they feel they have at
least one vote more than I have.”

“And the other three percent belongs
to?” Barry asked.

“The Flex-Martin Corporation,” Grace
responded.
 
“I sold three percent to them
when I thought we were going under for sure.
 
When I sold Sonny seven percent of my shares, I still had controlling
interest.
 
It wasn’t as devastating.
 
But when I had no choice but to sell that
other three percent, it was tough.
 
But
it had to be done.”

“You think that company is flexible
and will be open to a buyback perhaps?” Barry asked.
 
“They are called
Flex
-Martin, after all.”

“They won’t deal that way.
 
No buyback.
 
Corporations buy shares for leverage, not for money.
 
It’s usually in their best interest to hold
on, not to sell.
 
What I’ve got to do is
get them to vote along with me if I can’t get Sonny onboard.”

“So we’ve got a ten-percent problem.”

 
“If I can get Flex-Martin on my side,” Grace
said, “then I live to deal another day.
 
If I can get Flex-Martin to flip, it’ll buy me some time.
 
But I’m working them both, Sonny and Flex, to
stave off this mutiny now, before it comes around again.”

Barry frowned.
 
“Before what comes around again?”

“A new scheme,” Grace said.
 
“Before they try this shit again.
 
It’s a margins game, but they’re willing to
play dirty.
 
Outside of the margins.
 
If they fail this time, they’ll try again.”

“Then it’ll all come down to
Flex-Martin making a deal with you, or Sonny making a deal.
 
My money’s on . . . I don’t know, Grace.
 
Both will be hard sells.”

Grace nodded.
 
“I agree.”

“So what are you going to do?” Barry
asked.
 
“Go to Tommy?”

Grace exhaled.
 
“I’d be lying if I said he wasn’t my first
thought.
 
He was.”

“Tommy would help you in a
heartbeat.”
 
Then Barry smiled.
 
“He could give Sonny Lockett and/or Flex
Martin an offer they couldn’t refuse.”

“I know that,” Grace said.
 
“But when he turned his shares over to me
before we married, making me majority shareholder, he told me to run my
company.
 
Those were his words.
 
Run my company.
 
He didn’t tell me to run back to him whenever
hard times hit.
 
And that recession was
the hardest time of my professional life.
 
It was just after the divorce.
 
Vendors were worried because Tommy was no longer involved.
 
And then the recession hit.
 
It was hell.
 
But I didn’t run to Tommy back then.
 
I ran my company.
 
I lost ten
percent of my shares in the process, but the decisions I made allowed Trammel
to not only just survive through that recession, but to thrive through it.
 
Tommy and I weren’t on the best of terms back
then, but even he phoned and congratulated me.
 
Trucking companies were tanking left and right, but Trammel was still
standing.
 
I’m proud of that.”

“And so you should be,” Barry said,
feeling proud of her too.
 
Grace had
changed so much since the first time he met her.
 
She was a grown-ass woman now.
 
Grace was in charge.
 
“But what can we do?” he asked her.
 
“What about your husband?
 
Maybe Ed can help us.”

A ripple of pain shot through Grace’s
body at the idea of asking Ed for help.
 
Not on her life would she go there.
 
She once actually loved that joker.
 
It was a rebound love, and she made the grave mistake of marrying on the
rebound, but she did truly love him.
 
Now
something akin to hate filled her heart at just the thought of him.
 
Her father once told her that a man who would
ball up his fist and hit a woman, as Ed had done to her, was a man not to be
trusted.
 
He might have feelings for that
woman, her father added, but those feelings didn’t include love.
 
She knew the truth long before now.
 
She knew she had made a mistake when she
divorced Tommy, and an even bigger mistake when she married Ed.

But the idea of being twice-divorced,
and putting her daughter through yet another upheaval like that, gave her too
much pause.
 
And it also forced her to do
some serious soul-searching.
 
She had to
figure out what was her problem because the common denominator in her failed
relationships weren’t the men.
 
The
common denominator was her.
 
She was
still soul-searching even the night Ed hit her.
 
But after he hit her, the search was over.
 
She contacted her lawyer to draw up divorce
papers the very next day.
 
She hadn’t
heard from Ed since.
 
“He’s not an
option,” she said to Barry.

“Who’s not an option?” a voice said
near the office door.

Barry turned around quickly at the
sound of that voice, and Grace looked too.
 
Tommy was standing there, leaned against her doorjamb, looking gorgeous
with his hands in the pants pockets of his elegant suit, with his imported
shoes crossed at the ankles, and with his big eyes sparkling with the warmest
smile on his face.
 
Her heart
soared.
 
He should hate her after the way
she left him.
 
He should hate her after the
way she once went along with Ed’s scheme to keep Destiny’s contact with him at
a minimal.
 
But he didn’t.
 
He treated her, ever since their divorce,
with nothing but kindness and respect.
 
He’d shown her nothing but love.
 
She’d never met a man like Tommy.

“Hey there,” she said with a warm
smile of her own.
 
“I thought you were
out of the country.”

“I was,” Tommy said, pushing away
from the doorjamb and walking toward her desk.
 
Barry stood up.
 
“What is this bum
doing here?”

Barry smiled as they shook hands.
 
“How are you, Thomas?”

“I’m okay.
 
How are you?”

“Very well, thank the Lord.”

“Great person to thank.”

“Yes, indeed,” Barry said.
 
“And you’re doing better than okay.
 
I heard the Gabrini Corporation is about to
acquire Manesco.”

“It’s not a done deal yet,” Tommy
cautioned.
 
“But it’s a promising
prospect.”

“Which, translated,” Barry said,
looking at Grace, “it’s a done deal.”

Grace smiled.
 
And then there was that pregnant pause.
 
Barry got the message.
 
“I will get back to work, if you guys do not mind,”
he said.
 
And then he looked at
Grace.
 
“Phone me if there is anything
more I can do.
 
I will be in my office.”

“Thanks, Bare,” Grace said.
 
Barry said his goodbyes to Tommy, and left,
closing the door behind him this time.

Tommy was standing in front of
Grace’s desk.
 
Staring at her.
 
Specifically those sunglasses she wore where
there was no sun.
 
“Who’s not an option?”
he asked again.

Grace didn’t want to tell Tommy her
woes because she would risk him taking over and resolving it his way, before she
had a chance to act.
 
But she wasn’t
going to lie to him either, or keep it from him.
 
“There’s some rumblings on the board, and
I’ve got to take care of it.
 
Nobody else
is an option.”

“What kind of rumblings?” Tommy
asked.
 
“Takeover rumblings?”

Grace forgot how perceptive Tommy
could be.
 
“Yes,” she said.
 
“My board is attempting to wrestle control
from me so they can sell the business and take the money and run.”

“Sell it to whom?” Tommy asked.

“I haven’t worked that out yet.
 
But I’m on it.”

There was a time when Tommy would
have taken over.
 
Grace was so new to
corporate ownership back then that he didn’t feel he had a choice.
 
But after the way she conducted herself
during that recession, and came out on top, made him a believer.
 
She could handle it just fine herself.
 
“I’m sure you’re take care of it,” he said.