When Her Cheating Husband’s Luck Ran Out Chapter 07

When Her Cheating Husband’s Luck Ran Out Chapter 07 A Name on the File

“When this deal closes, you’re taking me out for barbecue. Your mother was crazy about barbecue. Every time she aced an exam she’d drag me out for ribs.”

That got a laugh out of me. “Deal.”

Kestrel’s stock dropped 7 percent the day the Arclight contract was signed.

Volan brought me the coverage with a grin he couldn’t flatten out.

‘Kestrel’s press office put out a statement. They’re claiming Arclight breached the contract and they’ll take it to court.”

‘Let them.”

‘Two people off their engineering team reached out to us. They want to jump.”

‘Send offers. Double whatever they’re making.”

‘On it.”

paged through the Kestrel file until one name stopped me.

Their battery director was Warren Ashby, a doctorate in materials science with 15 years in the industry, and Adrian had paid a ortune to pull him over.

Warren was half of everything Kestrel had left. If he walked, their solid-state program would slip two years at the very least. Two years gave me all the room I needed to take every point of market share Kestrel had.

‘Nolan, set up a meeting with Warren Ashby.”

Three days later, I met him at the coffee shop on the ground floor of my building

He was younger than I expected, early forties, though half his hair had already gone gray and the shadows under his eyes said he had not left the office in months.

“What can I get you, Warren?”

“Black coffee, thanks.”

I ordered two and sat down across from him.

“Why am I here?” He said it flat, with a note of caution underneath.

“I want you working for me.”

He blinked, then laughed. “Ms. Pierce, do you have any idea what Kestrel pays me a year?”

“$5,000,000, plus options.” I gave him the number without opening a file.

Something shifted behind his eyes.

“I’ll pay you $10,000,000. No options. Five percent of the company instead.” I let that sit for a second. “And your research budget has no ceiling.”

He said nothing for a long moment, and the silence sat there between us

The coffee came. He took one sip and set the cup back down.

“Why are you going after Adrian Pierce?”

I didn’t answer that one. I took a photograph out of my bag and laid it on the table between us.

It showed my mother in the plain dress they had put her in at Ashmoor, down on her knees, with a handprint across one side of her face.

Warren looked at it and his brow pulled together.

‘That’s my mother.” I kept my voice level. “Adrian told her she had traveled back in time, and then he locked her inside Ashmoor or three years. They broke her leg. They sold her to the Ivory. A lot of men…”

stopped there. “I’d rather not go into the details.”

The color went out of Warren’s face.

He stared at the photograph a long while before he lifted his head.

‘I’m in.”

Over the next two years, I took Kestrel’s business apart one line at a time.

They were in clean energy, so I went into clean energy. They made batteries so I made better ones.

My technology was better, my pricing was lower, and my people were sharper.

Their clients left one by one. Their suppliers turned. Their engineers came to work for me.

Kestrel’s stock slid from a high of $120 all the way down to $18.

Adrian’s net worth shrank from $100,000,000,000 to less than $20,000,000,000.

He started raising money anywhere he could, trying to keep the company breathing.

I had everything in place long before he reached for it.

Every time he approached an investor, I got there first with better terms.

Every bank he walked into had already heard from somebody in Marcus’s network.

The money never came. Nobody was going to save him.

“Ms. Pierce, the invitation came through for Kestrel’s twentieth anniversary gala tomorrow night.” Nolan laid a gold-embossed card on my desk.

I opened it. “Kestrel Group requests the pleasure of your company at our Twentieth Anniversary Gala, Ms. Josephine Pierce.”

Adrian had signed it himself. I smiled at his signature.