Chapter 10 - The Shadow of the Boardroom
The calm was interrupted on a crisp Tuesday morning when Grant’s secure phone buzzed on the marble kitchen counter. It wasn't Marcus, and it wasn't a family group chat. It flashed a number from Zurich—a private line belonging to Viktor Vance, the majority stakeholder of Halewick Therapeutics' European division.
Grant stared at the screen while wiping pancake batter off his hands. He let it ring out.
"Who is that?" Elena asked, noticing the tight line of his jaw as she poured coffee into two mugs.
"Vance," Grant said flatly. "He wants an emergency consultation regarding the European expansion portfolio."
"Are you going to take it?"
Grant walked over, took the mug from her hands, and set it down without breaking eye contact. "I stepped down from daily operations, Elena. My focus is here. On you. On the boys."
"Grant, that company was your life's work," she said, her voice softening with genuine concern. "If you need to take the call, or fly to Zurich for a couple of days... we can handle it. You don't have to put your entire identity on hold."
"It's not on hold," he corrected gently, pulling her close. "I'm redefining it. Vance can talk to the new board chairman. My negotiating table right now is right here in Brooklyn."
Later that afternoon, however, the digital intrusion escalated. Grant was sitting on the rug in the living room helping Owen assemble a complicated Lego spaceship when his email chimed. It was an urgent PDF attachment labeled Confidential Restructuring Proposal.
He opened it out of sheer habit. His eyes scanned the financial projections. A cold realization washed over him: Vance wasn't just asking for advice. The European board was staging a silent coup, attempting to gut the research and development division that Grant had personally founded—the exact division working on pediatric autoimmune treatments.
Grant stared at the screen, the old, ruthless instincts kicking in. His fingers hovered over the keyboard. With a single email, he could tear down Vance's proposal, rewrite their terms, and crush the coup in under an hour.
"Grant?"
He looked up. Elena was standing in the doorway, holding a stack of blueprints, watching him with an unreadable expression.
"You're doing it again," she whispered, her voice carrying a trace of old pain. "That look. The one where the rest of the room disappears and you turn back into the machine."
Grant dropped his hands instantly, sliding the laptop shut with a sharp click that startled the Lego pieces scattered across the rug.
"I'm not going back, Elena," he said, rising to his feet and walking over to her. "I was just... checking a security risk."
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"Is it a risk to us?" she asked quietly, searching his eyes.
"No," Grant said, taking her hands in his. "Never to us."
