“This isn’t a settlement negotiation.”

“Are you going to burn the whole Pembroke Group to the ground?” His voice cracked straight down the middle.

“You spent four years helping me build this company!”

“I didn’t help you build it, Roderick.” I kept my voice level and cold.

“I built it.

The structure, the architecture, the trust the entire thing stands on — that was mine.

And you took what I built and used it to fund your mistress and your secret child.”

There was a silence on the line, and I could hear him rearranging his face for a new approach even through the phone, the way I had watched him do across a thousand dinners.