Franklin pressed the speakerphone button. The line crackled with tension.
"Franklin," Daniel Hardman's voice was smooth, a practiced calm that didn't quite hide the fury underneath. "I just had a process server ruin a very expensive cup of coffee on my doorstep. Care to explain?"
"I would have thought the lawsuit was self-explanatory, Daniel," Franklin said, leaning back in his chair. "It's all laid out in the complaint. Conspiracy, fraud... I even threw in intentional infliction of emotional distress for a little flair."
"This is a joke," Daniel snapped, the calm vanishing. "You're suing me? You can't sue me. I am a name partner of this firm!"
"Are you?" Franklin asked, his tone light. "Funny, I just looked at the wall on my way in. Your name seems to be missing."
"You had no right to do that!" Daniel's voice rose. "You don't get to unilaterally remove a name! There are bylaws, Franklin! Procedures! You can't just play god because you feel like it!"
Franklin laughed, a soft, chilling sound. "Bylaws. Procedures. You think I care about a piece of paper? I wrote half those bylaws. And the ones I didn't write, I've already had Louis Litt working on since 5 a.m. to amend. By the end of the day, you'll be nothing more than a minority shareholder with a very expensive legal problem."
"You're making a huge mistake, kid," Daniel said, his voice dropping into a low, threatening growl. "You have no idea what you're starting."
"Oh, I know exactly what I'm starting," Franklin said, all traces of humor gone. "I'm finishing something. Something that started the night my parents were murdered."
There was a sharp silence on the other end of the line. When Daniel spoke again, his voice was different. Softer. More careful. "Franklin... your parents' death was a tragedy. A horrible, senseless tragedy. I was there. I mourned them with you. To suggest that I had anything to do with that... it's monstrous. You're grieving, I understand that. But this? This is madness."
"Save it," Franklin cut him off, his voice like ice. "Save the concerned uncle act for someone who's buying it. I'm not a grieving kid anymore, Daniel. I'm the man who's been digging into your life for the better part of a decade. I know about Lombard Consolidated. I know about Aethelred Holdings. I know about the payment to Angela Elkins. You got sloppy. You got arrogant. You thought you could poke me and I wouldn't bite back."
"Those are just names, Franklin!" Daniel insisted, a note of desperation creeping in. "You're connecting dots that aren't there! This is a fantasy! You've built this... this conspiracy in your head because you can't accept that sometimes bad things just happen to good people!"
"Bad things?" Franklin stood up, his hand flat on his desk. "My parents were executed in the street. That's not a 'bad thing.' That's a message. And now you're sending me another one, using my own company. So let's stop pretending. This isn't about the lawsuit. This is about you answering one question."
He leaned in closer to the speakerphone, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper.
"What did you have to do with my parents' death?"
"Nothing!" Daniel shouted, the facade finally crumbling. "I had nothing to do with it! This is insane! I loved your father! He was my partner!"
"Then explain the money, Daniel!" Franklin shot back, his own voice rising for the first time. "Explain why a shell corporation you control paid off the widow of a driver from my company weeks before he died! Explain why you're trying to destroy the legacy my father built!"
"I'm not trying to destroy anything! You're paranoid! You've always been unstable, Franklin! Everyone sees it! The genius who's one step away from cracking! Well, you've finally done it! You've lost your mind!"
Franklin took a slow, deep breath, reining in his anger. The silence that followed was more powerful than any shout.
"Listen to me very carefully, Daniel," he said, each word precise and sharp as a razor. "I am going to spend every waking moment from now until the day you are rotting in a prison cell proving that you are a liar and a murderer. I am going to subpoena every record, depose every associate, and follow every cent you've ever touched. I will turn your life inside out. I will own your house, your cars, every last dollar you have. And when I'm done with the civil trial, I will hand the entire case over to the district attorney on a silver platter."
He paused, letting the threat sink in.
"And if I find out, and I mean truly find out, that you so much as knew the name of the man who pulled the trigger... if I find a single email, a single memo, a single whispered conversation that puts you in that car with my parents..."
Franklin's voice went quiet again, so quiet Daniel had to strain to hear it.
"...then the lawsuit will be the least of your problems. I will personally make sure you regret the day you were born. Do we understand each other?"
There was no sound from the other end. Just the faint, ragged sound of Daniel Hardman breathing.
"Good," Franklin said. "I'll see you in court."
He reached out and pressed a button, cutting the call dead.
The silence in the office was absolute. Franklin stood there for a long moment, his hands clenched into fists on the desk. The conversation had gone exactly as he'd expected. Denial, deflection, and then desperation. Daniel was guilty. He knew it in his bones.
His intercom buzzed. "Franklin?" It was a temp. Secretary. "Louis is here. He says it's about the bylaws. He looks... excited."
Franklin took another breath, smoothing his expression back into its usual mask of bored indifference. "Send him in."
The door flew open and Louis hurried in, clutching a thick binder to his chest. His eyes were wide, his face flushed with the thrill of being at the center of the storm.
"Franklin! I've done it! I've found the angle! The bylaws state that a name can only be removed by a unanimous vote of the remaining name partners in the event of gross misconduct or a felony conviction! But! And this is the beautiful part! There's a sub-clause, added in 2003, that allows for a temporary suspension of all partnership rights if a name partner is under indictment for a crime that would bring the firm into disrepute!"
Franklin just looked at him. "And?"
Louis's excitement faltered for a second. "And... well, you've sued him. That's not an indictment. But! I think we can argue that the lawsuit itself, given the sensational nature of the allegations, constitutes a reputational risk so severe that it triggers the spirit of the clause! We can go to Jessica, make the case for a temporary suspension pending the outcome of the litigation!"
Franklin walked around his desk and sat down. "Louis."
"Yes?"
"I don't care."
Louis blinked. "You... you don't care? But the bylaws... the procedure..."
"Daniel Hardman is not going to be a problem for this firm much longer," Franklin said, picking up a pen and turning it over in his fingers. "The lawsuit is a tool. It's the pressure I'm applying to see what cracks. The bylaws are a distraction. Let Jessica handle the internal politics. I have a real fight to win."
Louis stood there, his prized binder suddenly feeling useless. "So... what should I do?"
Franklin looked up, a faint, cold smile on his lips. "You want to be useful? Dig up everything you can on Daniel's personal finances from the last fifteen years. Every investment, every shell company, every offshore account. I want to know what he had for breakfast the day my parents died. Can you do that?"
Louis's eyes lit up again. A fishing expedition in Daniel Hardman's life? It was his wildest dream. "I can do that! I am the master of the numbers! I will find it! I will find everything!"
"Good. Now get out."
Louis scurried from the office, already muttering to himself about Swiss bank accounts.
Franklin's smile faded as soon as the door closed. He looked at the phone. Daniel's denial had been forceful, but it was the reaction of a cornered animal, not an innocent man.
He picked up his cell and dialed his sister.
She answered on the first ring. "Frankie? What's happening? I'm hearing rumors..."
"It's started, Ciss," he said, his voice tired. "I served him with the papers."
He heard her sharp intake of breath. "And?"
"And he denied everything. Called me paranoid. Unstable."
"He's a snake," she whispered, her voice thick with emotion.
"He is," Franklin agreed. "But snakes can be cornered. And cornered snakes strike." He paused. "I need you to be careful, Cissy. I need you to double your security. Don't go anywhere alone. I'm serious."
"You think he'd come after me?" she asked, her voice small and scared.
"I think he's desperate," Franklin said. "And I just showed him how close I am. So, yes. I do. Promise me you'll be careful."
"I promise," she said. "Frankie... be careful too."
"Always," he said softly, and ended the call.
He sat in the silence, the weight of it all pressing down on him. He had set the wheels in motion. There was no going back now. It was him or Daniel. Only one of them would be left standing when the dust settled.
His email pinged. It was an alert from his investigator. The subject line was simple: "Call log analysis - Angela Elkins."
Franklin opened it. The email contained a detailed map of calls from Angela's phone over the past month. Most were to family, friends, her lawyer. But one number, a burn phone, had appeared multiple times. The investigator had managed to get a rough location for the last call.
The signal had originated from a private club in the Upper East Side.
A club that Daniel Hardman was known to frequent.
Franklin's blood ran cold. It was another thread. Another connection. He was getting closer.
He picked up the phone to call his investigator back, to tell him to put a man on the club, when his office door opened again.
He looked up, ready to snap at whoever it was.
It was Mike Ross. He stood in the doorway, holding a single sheet of paper, his face pale.
"I figured it out," Mike said, his voice quiet. "The commodities case. The loophole. I found the precedent."
Franklin just stared at him, his mind still half in the world of shell corporations and murder.
Mike took a step forward. "But that's not why I'm here. I... I was in the file room, getting the case law, and I overheard two senior partners talking. They were talking about you. About Hardman."
Franklin put his phone down slowly. "What did they say?"
Mike swallowed. "They said that Daniel Hardman is calling an emergency meeting of the full partnership. For tonight. They said he's going to make a motion to have you removed from the firm."