He thought about Robert Whitfield sometimes, more than he liked to admit, about a partnership that had started with real friendship decades earlier before ambition and money and one very bad decision had ended it in a way neither man ever fully recovered from. He thought about the accusation that had followed him out of that partnership, unfair as he still believed it to be after all these years, about the way Robert had chosen loyalty to a wounded stranger over loyalty to the man who had built the company beside him.
Twenty-five years was a long time to carry a grudge. Doyle understood that about himself. He had simply never found a good enough reason to put it down. Now Robert was gone and his daughter stood in the way of the one thing that might finally settle the account between them. Doyle sometimes wondered what his life might have looked like if he had simply apologized all those years ago. Instead of fighting the accusation with every lawyer he could afford, he wondered it late at night, mostly when the wondering couldn’t cost him anything.
By morning, the wondering always passed. Pride is patient that way. It waits for daylight, then talks a man out of whatever he almost understood in the dark. Doyle didn’t consider himself a cruel man. He told himself that often, the way people do when they need the reminder more than the world does. He considered himself a man owed something. Finally collecting what should have been his a long time ago.
The dinner was in three days. If his plan needed to move faster now, he decided then it would move faster. He had waited twenty-five years for this. A few less days of patience would not stop him now. He picked up his phone and dialed Roark’s number. “Move up the timeline,” he said when Roark answered. “All of it. We don’t wait for the anniversary anymore. We make it happen at the anniversary.”
Roark asked a question Doyle didn’t bother answering directly. “Just make sure the paperwork looks clean,” Doyle said instead. “And make sure the old judge and his files disappear from the picture before anyone thinks to ask him for help in a courtroom.” He hung up without waiting for a response and turned back to the window, watching the distant smokestack rise steady and unbothered against the evening sky. For now, at least, it was still rising because of him. He intended to make sure that changed very soon.
Back at the plant, Clare sat with Walter in the quiet aftermath of the day. Both of them tired in a way that had nothing to do with the hour. “One threat handled,” Clare said. “How many more are there?” “Honestly,” Walter said, “I don’t know yet, but I know this. Doyle wanted quiet leverage, and he just lost it. Men like that don’t respond well to losing an advantage.” “So what happens now?”