Chapter 6 - The Midnight Boardroom
By 11:00 PM, while Claire was being settled into a private executive suite at Northwestern Memorial Hospital for orthopedic reconstruction, I walked into the top-floor boardroom of Mercer Dynamics in downtown Chicago.
Chairman Ross and the entire board of directors sat around the thirty-foot mahogany conference table in emergency session.
"Mrs. Sterling," Chairman Ross said, standing up as I entered. "We have concluded the emergency audit of Grant Mercer's regional division."
Lead Auditor David Vance projected the financial records onto the wall display.
"Over the past eighteen months, Grant Mercer diverted 2.8 million dollars in vendor logistics retainers into offshore dummy corporations in Belize and Grand Cayman," Vance reported. "He used company credit lines to finance luxury vehicles, private casino junkets, and paid over five hundred thousand dollars in hush-money settlements to former female subordinates who filed workplace harassment claims."
"Did the previous executive committee know about this?" I asked, my voice deadly calm.
"His mother, Evelyn Mercer, served on the internal ethics review panel and quietly dismissed every complaint without notifying the board," Ross admitted with deep shame.
"Then the remedy is absolute," I stated, placing my official proxy documents on the table. "Pursuant to Section 12 of the master trust agreement, I formally exercise the Sterling Trust veto. Grant Mercer is terminated immediately for gross moral turpitude and felony embezzlement. Evelyn Mercer is permanently removed from all corporate advisory panels and stripped of her director pension."
Chairman Ross picked up his pen without hesitation. "All in favor?"
May you like
Every single board member raised their hand in unanimous agreement.
With three swift signatures, the Mercer family's forty-year reign over the company was permanently severed.
