CHAPTER FOUR
His ringing phone sounded like an echo in his massive Fifth Avenue apartment and he woke up on the fourth ring.
When he realized it wasn’t his doorbell ringing, but his cell phone, he grabbed it from the nightstand and looked at the Caller ID.
When he saw that it was Mel Weiss, the CEO of his corporation, and he was calling him at midnight, he knew it had to be serious.
“It’s late, Mel.”
“Where are you?”
Mel sounded as if he was running. “I’m home. And why are you running?”
“Get to the office now. There’s a takeover in progress.”
“A takeover?” Stuart threw the covers off of his naked body and swung his feet out of the bed. “What do you mean there’s a takeover?”
“It’s happening right now. They waited until we both were out of the building to pull this shit. Get back now, Stu!”
Stuart was already standing up and hurrying to his closet. “Who’s behind it? Do we know?”
“We know.”
Stuart grabbed a brand-new shirt off of the center island in his huge closet and tore off the wrappings. When Mel didn’t say who, his concern intensified. “Well who is it?” he barked out.
“It’s Alan.”
Stuart was pulling the new, crisp white dress shirt out of the package when he heard that name. He stopped in his tracks. “Alan? My son?”
“Your son. He just orchestrated one of the biggest heights in corporate history. Get here fast!”
Mel ended the call and Stuart hurriedly called Joshua, his house manager and chief assistant, as he put on his shirt, a pair of pants, slipped in a pair of loafers, and then grabbed his overcoat.
When he made it out of his building, his driver drove the limousine up to the exclusive building’s entrance and his bodyguard hopped off of the front passenger seat and opened the back passenger door.
When the bodyguard got back inside, the driver sped away.
Both employees had been alerted of the crisis by Stuart’s assistant. They knew the urgency.
But Stuart was still reeling from the news.
It was shocking enough that someone had initiated a hostile takeover of a company he built up decades ago, but that shock paled in comparison to knowing who was spearheading the takeover.
His own son? His flesh and blood? The one person in the world he always thought had his back but just put a knife through it?
He could not believe it. As his limo tore through the streets of Manhattan, he had to see it with his own two eyes to believe it.
Alan? His own son?
No way.
That was just not possible. He loved his son, and his son didn’t necessarily despise him.
But it wasn’t until he finally focused and thought about other possibilities did he see clearly what could have happened.
Especially when Alan’s mother came to mind and the outsized influence she still held over their son.
And the fact that she was the second-leading stakeholder in his corporation thanks to their contentious divorce riled him too.
And the fact that she still hated his guts with everything within her?
Suddenly he realized that the impossible was darn near probable.
And that he, and his beloved corporation, were in trouble.
He was fielding call after call after call. And it was confirmed to him over and over and over.
This was no longer on a scale from one to ten. This was scale horrific.