The Merger

Chapter Six: The Investor's Warning

"Wolfe Development is leveraged further than their public filings suggest," Richard Holt said, no pleasantries, the moment Elena picked up. "Significantly further. If Aldridge Riverside underperforms, I have reason to believe the company doesn't have the reserves to absorb the loss."

Elena sat in her car, engine idling, watching Damian's silhouette recede in the rearview mirror. "Why tell me instead of walking away yourself?"

"Because you deserve to protect your own firm before you tie its name to a company that might not survive it. I'd encourage you to ask Damian directly. Soon."

The call ended. Elena sat in the dark, running the last twenty minutes like she was hunting for the load-bearing wall in a building just declared unsound. Sebastian. Vivian. Now a stranger with, apparently, an actual conscience — telling her the man she'd almost kissed twenty minutes ago might be sitting on a company close enough to collapse to bury them both.

She dialed him before she could think better of it.

"Elena." A beat, careful. "Is everything all right?"

"Is Wolfe Development in real trouble? The kind that makes Aldridge a make-or-break project?"

The silence lasted long enough that her stomach dropped before he answered.

"Where did you hear that?"

"Not an answer."

"No." Something in the single syllable told her everything Holt hadn't spelled out. "It's not. Wolfe Development has taken on more leverage in the last two years than my board would like anyone outside the company to know. Aldridge isn't just important to me. It's important to whether this company exists in three years."

"And you were going to let me sign without telling me that."

"I was going to tell you before the ink dried. I swear to you."

"You said that about Ashcombe too."

The silence that followed was the longest yet. When he spoke again, every trace of his usual composure was gone. "There's someone inside my own company feeding information to outside investors. Selectively. Carefully. Someone who wants this deal to fall apart badly enough to reach out to you personally instead of just walking away from their own money." A pause, heavy with something close to fear. "I don't think Holt found those numbers on his own, Elena. I think someone handed them to him. And I have a very short list of people who'd want this partnership to collapse that badly."