He repaid every cent, but Grandma wrote that a man like Grant never forgot a debt of honor.
If Meredith ever used that company to corner me, Grandma told me not to fight alone.
Call Grant Whitaker.
So I did.
At 7:15 the next morning, I dialed the private number.
It rang twice.
“Whitaker,” a deep voice answered.
“My name is Natalie Bennett,” I said. “Rose Bennett was my grandmother. She told me to call if I was ever being pressured out of my home at 316 Hawthorne Avenue.”
Silence stretched across the line.
Then his voice dropped.
“Rose Bennett saved my company,” he said. “Tell me everything.”
That afternoon, I met him in a glass-walled conference room at the top of the Whitaker & Cole tower.
I brought the blue folder, Meredith’s texts, the lowball contract, and Grandma’s letter.
Grant Whitaker read everything twice.
By the time he finished, the polite CEO mask was gone.
“This redevelopment project is confidential,” he said. “No employee is allowed to use pre-release corporate intelligence for personal gain. If your sister removed these files and used them to pressure a private owner—especially her own sister—she crossed a line I do not forgive.”
I swallowed hard.