A
couple of days later the hospital called Michael with the news that he was a match.
About an hour after that Alan called to tell him that Saralyn and Abraham wanted to
meet with him. As he strode down the hallway at MEEG on his way to the boardroom for
the meeting, he felt empowered and vindicated. He was about to get everything he deserved,
everything he’d been denied by the old man’s disinterest. But more important, the
old man and the wicked stepmother were about to get a taste of what they deserved.
Today was payback day all around.
Yes, he had the Martins exactly where he wanted them this morning. It was the Thomases
who were giving him headaches. Deborah wasn’t speaking to him, and when she did, he
wasn’t interested in hearing what she had to say. Josette had called last night and
confirmed that she had left him, just as she’d said she would. She hadn’t told him
where she was, but she did promise
to update him regularly on her condition and the baby’s. He took that as a sign she
would be back at his side very soon.
Michael glanced to his left at his previous partner in crime. Alan didn’t have much
to say to him this morning. Since he no longer needed Alan, he didn’t really care
whether they engaged in conversation or not. The man had never been anything more
to him than a means to an end.
His heartbeat raced as they approached the doors to the boardroom. Alan opened the
door for him and he entered, head held high. “Good morning,” he said, nodding first
to Saralyn and then to Abraham. The two were seated on the far side of the conference
table next to each other, the picture of solidarity. Saralyn wore a haughty expression
that clearly showed what she thought of him. Abraham’s was more guarded, so he couldn’t
read him.
Abraham gave a hearty “Good morning” in return, while Saralyn said nothing. She was
there, but it was clear she didn’t want to be. It was also clear to him she wasn’t
going to pretend that her attitude toward him had changed. He really didn’t care.
He’d put her in her place before the meeting was over.
He took a seat across from them while Alan went around the table and sat next to Abraham.
Michael had considered bringing his lawyer with him, but he didn’t think he needed
him since he held all the cards in this poker game. It was merely a matter of watching
his opponents fold.
Alan cleared his throat. “Since we all know why we’re here this morning, I suggest
we forgo the formalities and get right to the matter at hand.” His eyes met Michael’s.
“The floor is yours, Mr. Thomas.”
Michael knew Alan’s introductory statement was meant to shame him, but he felt no
shame. He unbuttoned the buttons of his suit jacket and opened the portfolio he’d
brought with him. “First, I’d like to thank you two for meeting with me this morn
ing. I know you both have a pressing personal matter on your mind. Let me say up front,
I don’t intend for us to be here very long.”
“Oh, please,” Saralyn muttered. She glanced at Abraham. “Do we really have to sit
through this?”
“Yes, you do,” Michael said, his voice tight, before Abraham could answer. He hated
Saralyn Martin about as much as she hated him. “Second, I want to be clear that the
parameters of the deal I’m about to put forth are not up for negotiation. As we speak,
my attorneys are drawing up the necessary contracts. They’ll be ready for Alan’s review
and yours by the time we end this meeting.”
Though he wasn’t thirsty, Michael poured himself a glass of water from the pitcher
near him and drank a swallow. He wanted to prolong the anxiety he knew Abraham and
Saralyn were feeling. “I have only five requests,” he began, looking down unnecessarily
at his portfolio. “First, I want a permanent seat on the MEEG board of directors with
full and equal voting rights. Do you agree to this request?”
“We agree,” Alan said, speaking for his clients.
Michael shook his head. “I want to hear it from them. Individually.”
Saralyn’s lips turned into a snarl. “You are a petty little man, Michael Thomas. You
will never be the man my son is.”
Michael grinned at her because he knew it would anger her. Then he turned cruel. “You
may never know the man your son can be if you don’t answer the question.”
“There’s no need for that,” Abraham said. “We wouldn’t be here if we weren’t ready
to accept you terms. Let’s get on with it. I agree.”
Michael looked at Saralyn. “I agree,” she muttered.
“Good. Now on to number two. I want you to honor the cur
rent stipulation in the MEEG bylaws that awards a board seat to the spouse of a Martin
heir upon the birth of the first child to their union.”
“I agree,” they both said.
With that agreement, Michael had just guaranteed Josette a seat as soon as she gave
birth to their child. “Good. Now on to number three. I want MEEG to purchase Thomas
Management as a fully owned subsidiary, with me, Michael Thomas, as permanent CEO.
I will have full control of the subsidiary along with full access to the resources
of all the other MEEG holdings. The purchase price will be two times the offer Mrs.
Martin made for me and my sister to get out of your lives, half in cash, half in MEEG
stock. Do you agree to this request?”
Alan leaned over and whispered something in Abraham’s ear. Though Abraham listened
intently, he never took his eyes off Michael, who remained erect in his chair. Finally,
the old man was seeing that Michael was as much the businessman as he himself was.
When Alan was finished, Abraham turned and whispered something to Saralyn. “I agree,”
they both said.
Michael grinned again. “Good,” he said. “See, I told you this wasn’t going to take
long. Let’s move on to number four. I want a stipulation in the corporate bylaws that
requires equal distribution and assignment of MEEG shares among Abraham’s three children,
meaning first that shares cannot be given to one sibling without being given to the
others, and second, shares cannot be sold to one sibling unless the same offer is
made to the other siblings. Do you agree with this request?”
Abraham looked at Alan, who nodded. “I agree,” Abraham said. Saralyn repeated the
phrase.
Michael thought the meeting was going pretty well. He had just ensured that Isaac
would never own more shares of MEEG than
he would. In fact, he would own more since he would have the shares from the sale
of Thomas Management. This meeting was going very well. “Now for my fifth and final
request. Since you’ve been so gracious with my previous requests, I’m going to be
gracious with this one and give you an option. I want Saralyn Martin removed from
the MEEG board of directors—”
Saralyn jumped up from her chair. “You little miscreant. Who are you—”
Abraham tugged on her arm and pulled her back down. He leaned over to her, rubbed
her shoulders and whispered in her ear. Then he looked back at Michael, his eyes full
of fire. Michael was glad to know he’d finally gotten a rise out of the man. “Go on,”
Abraham said. “Let’s finish this.”
Michael nodded. “As I was saying, I want Saralyn Martin removed from the board or
Leah Thomas added to the board. The choice is yours.”
Without consulting with Saralyn, Abraham said, “We’ll add Leah.”
Michael closed his portfolio. “That concludes my business this morning. Does anyone
have anything else?”
Saralyn stood. “I can’t take any more of this,” she said. “I’m going to see my son.”
With those words, she left the boardroom, slamming the door behind her.
Abraham turned to Alan. “You’ve got all that, right?”
Alan nodded.
“Then give me a few minutes alone with my son.”
After Alan left the room and they were alone, Abraham said with a smile, “You’re full
of surprises, Michael.”
Having gotten what he wanted, it didn’t matter to him what Abraham thought. He was
a bit disappointed, though, that the old man didn’t look like he’d lost. He wanted
to wipe that smile off his face. “What’s life without surprises?”
“Except for that shot you took at Saralyn with the board nonsense, your requests were
pretty reasonable. I half expected you to want all of MEEG, not just a part of it.”
Michael had tempered his requests in deference to his wife, mother, and sister. It
would take them some time to forgive him for his revised requests, he knew. Had he
gone with the original ones, no doubt it would have taken them longer. He didn’t want
or need all the drama, since the baby was coming soon. “I’m a reasonable man and a
pretty astute businessman,” he said to Abraham. “The only thing worse than a bad hand
is the overplaying of a great one.”
“There’s something I don’t understand, though,” Abraham said, curiosity shining in
his eyes. “Most of what you asked for—the board seat, the MEEG equity—I already wanted
to give you. I had even thought about how Thomas Management Group would fit in with
my other MEEG holdings. I wanted us to work through these ideas together and in the
process forge some kind of relationship. If you had accepted my hand when I offered
it to you, we could have reached this point in a much more amicable way. Why didn’t
you?”
Michael lifted his shoulders in a slight shrug. “I didn’t trust you, still don’t.
And given how things worked with that board seat, I was right not to. You sang a good
song about wanting to bring Deborah and me into the fold, but your execution was shoddy.
I took this opportunity to set things right. You ought to thank me for it.”
Abraham smiled that smile again. “Give me a few days to think on it. This new magnanimous
Michael is a bit much for me to deal with.”
The old man was good at masking his emotions, Michael thought, for there was no way
he could be happy about what had gone on in the meeting. The smile and his calm expression
had to be a facade. “Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “I’m not going to lie
and say I didn’t want your head on a platter, but I couldn’t find a way to do it without
suffering personal losses that were just too high. At least, too high for right now.
But it’s not over yet. There’s still time for me to take you out.”
Abraham laughed, a hearty laugh that Michael knew was real. “I’ll watch my back.”
Abraham’s laughter threw him off-kilter. He’d expected the man to be angry, defiant,
but he wasn’t. It had to be a trick, he thought. The old man was trying to get inside
his head. Well, he would let him think he had. That way, when the opportunity presented
itself and he was finally able to lower the boom on Abraham Martin, the unexpectedness
of it would make it that much sweeter. Abraham was nowhere close to having paid the
debt he owed. Michael stood and picked up his portfolio, ready to leave.
“One more thing,” Abraham said. Michael turned back to him. “We found another donor,
so we don’t need you for the transplant after all.”
Michael swallowed hard, tried to maintain his composure, but his knees felt like they
were about to give out on him. He sat back down to keep from falling down. “What did
you say?”
“I said that Isaac has another donor so he won’t need your liver. It turns out someone
from our church was also a match.”
Michael opened his mouth but couldn’t decide what to say, so he closed it, saying
nothing. He merely stared at Abraham, who stared right back at him.
“You know,” Abraham began, “a sit-down similar to this one is all I’ve wanted from
you. A chance to talk, to hear about your business, to find out what makes you tick.
You’ve done a great job with Thomas Management, by the way. I’ve always thought it
was more than coincidence that you and Deborah chose careers in the entertainment
field. It was one sign that Martin blood flowed through your veins.”
Michael’s head felt like it was filled with cobwebs that were
clouding his thinking. He wanted to give his head a couple of swift shakes to rid
himself of them, but he didn’t want Abraham to know he was rattled. “What was this
meeting all about, then?” he asked when he was finally able to put together a question.
Abraham leaned back in his chair, folded his arms across his stomach. He appeared
completely and fully relaxed. “You’re a businessman. You tell me what it was about.”
Michael didn’t want to voice his thoughts. It would be too humiliating. He’d come
here to put Abraham in his place, and Abraham had turned the tables on him. How quickly
he’d gone from victory to defeat! “You may have won this round, old man, but this
war of ours is far from over. I’m going to beat you at your own game. Maybe not today,
but someday.”
Abraham leaned forward. “You still don’t get it, do you?” Without waiting for a response,
he continued, “The war ended today, Michael, and we both won. You got what you wanted
and I got what I wanted.”
Michael finally had to shake those cobwebs away. “You’ve totally lost me,” he said.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I’ve accepted all your terms, so you’ve won,” Abraham explained. “They were all things
I would have freely given you anyway, so I’ve won as well. Win-win.”
Michael wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly, so he asked, “You’re going to honor this
deal even though I won’t be giving Isaac part of my liver?”
Abraham’s smile faded and the look of defeat that Michael had wanted to see earlier
finally appeared on his face. “I thank God Isaac doesn’t need your liver. First of
all, he wasn’t going to take it.”
“He wasn’t going to take it?” Michael said, interrupting him.
“He was adamant about not taking it, has been since he learned he needed a transplant.
He wants a brother, Michael, not a donor.
It was clear to him that he’d never have you as a brother if he used you as a donor.”
Michael didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t sure he believed Abraham. “It’s easy for
Isaac to say that, knowing he has another donor lined up. He’d be singing a different
tuned if he didn’t.”
Abraham shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. Isaac didn’t even want you to be tested.”
Michael snorted. “Well, he had you and Saralyn out there fighting for him on that
one. Don’t tell me you didn’t want me to be tested. Don’t tell me you hadn’t already
lined me up to be a donor. You and Saralyn were willing to go a long way to get your
precious son a liver.”