He swallowed. "Something I should have told you eight months ago." The courtyard, which had begun to relax, went rigid again. Travis looked at his board chairman for a long, slow moment.
Howard Lassiter had been with him for 14 years. Howard Lassiter did not panic. Howard Lassiter did not pull a man aside in front of a crowd unless the building was on fire. "Daniel," Travis said quietly, not taking his eyes off Lassiter.
"Don't let that folder out of your hands." "Yes, sir." "Howard." Travis's voice had dropped into something very calm and very cold.
"Whatever it is, you're going to say it right here, out loud. Because the last time somebody in my organization wanted a private word before signing, it cost me $9 million and a man I trusted." He folded his arms. "So what's in the Whitmore file that you should have told me eight months ago?"
Howard Lassiter's face had gone the color of paper. He looked at Ethan Whitmore, who was staring at him now with dawning, horrified confusion, and then back at Travis. "It's not just Whitmore Holdings that's about to go under," Lassiter said. "And the bridge lender that's about to call the loan Monday morning..."
He took a breath. "Isn't a stranger. You know exactly who it is, and so do I." "Say it plain, Howard," Travis said.
"We're past the part where anybody gets to be careful with their words." Howard Lassiter wet his lips. Fourteen years he'd worked for this man, and in 14 years he had never once felt the floor tilt the way it was tilting now. "The bridge lender," he said.
"The one with the confession of judgment. The one that's going to seize Whitmore's accounts Monday." He paused. "It's Meridian Credit Partners."
Travis went very still. The name meant nothing to the crowd. It meant nothing to Ethan, who was looking back and forth between the two men with the dumb confusion of someone watching a conversation in a language he didn't speak. But it meant something to Travis Reed.
Daniel saw his boss's jaw tighten, and Daniel, who knew where everybody in the company was buried, felt his own stomach drop because Daniel knew that name, too. "Meridian," Travis repeated. "Yes." "Howard."
Travis's voice had gone soft, which was a thousand times worse than if he'd shouted. "Reed Capital owns 60% of Meridian Credit Partners. We bought the stake four years ago. I sit on their lending committee."
"I sit on it." "I know," Lassiter said quietly. "So you're telling me—" Travis took a step toward his chairman.
"That the predatory bridge loan that's been strangling this company, the confession of judgment that's about to put 62 people out of work Monday morning, the trap that turned a survivable cash crunch into a death sentence..." His voice dropped to almost nothing. "That came out of a company I control." "Yes," Lassiter said.