Chapter 5 - Northstar Holdings
At three in the morning, Henry arrived at the hospital carrying a blue leather folder.
My father groaned when he saw it.
"Not tonight."
Henry ignored him.
"Unfortunately, tonight."
I had been given pain medication and should have been asleep.
Instead, I was staring through the hospital window at Manhattan.
The city looked smaller from this side of the glass.
Henry placed the folder on the table beside my bed.
"Clare, do you remember Northstar Holdings?"
I frowned.
The name reached backward through years of memories.
"Yes."
"What do you remember?"
"I formed it before NexusCore's seed round."
"Why?"
"Because the original software patents couldn't be transferred directly while Matthew's first company was still being dissolved."
Henry nodded.
"And?"
"I assigned the patents to Northstar."
"Correct."
My father watched silently.
I looked between them.
"Why are we talking about this now?"
Henry opened the folder.
Inside were incorporation documents.
Patent registrations.
Old financing agreements.
My signature appeared again and again.
CLARE E. STERLING.
Not Hayes.
Sterling.
Henry tapped one document.
"Northstar never disappeared."
"I know."
"Do you know what it still owns?"
"The original patents."
"Not just those."
He turned several pages.
"Northstar owns the foundational architecture license for NexusCore's predictive routing engine."
I blinked.
"Matthew told me the company bought that years ago."
"No."
"He said the board approved the transfer."
"The board approved an exclusive license."
I stared at Henry.
"What's the difference?"
"A very large one."
My father finally spoke.
"Ownership never moved."
My heart began pounding.
Henry nodded.
"Northstar owns the intellectual property."
"And I own Northstar."
"One hundred percent."
I almost laughed.
It sounded impossible.
"Matthew knows this."
"He should."
"But he's been telling investors NexusCore owns its platform."
Henry's face tightened.
"That is one of the issues the audit will examine."
I looked down at the contract.
"Can I shut the company down?"
My father's eyes moved to Henry.
Henry chose his words carefully.
"Not arbitrarily."
I appreciated the answer.
I did not want fantasy.
I wanted truth.
"The license contains termination rights for fraud involving intellectual property representations, intentional concealment of material transactions, and certain breaches of fiduciary duty."
"Has any of that happened?"
"We don't know yet."
"But you suspect it."
"Strongly."
He pulled out another document.
"Do you remember when you stopped attending board meetings?"
"Three years ago."
"Matthew represented that you voluntarily resigned."
"I never resigned."
Henry's expression did not change.
"Did you sign this?"
He handed me a photocopy.
The signature looked like mine.
Almost.
But the S curved wrong.
My skin went cold.
"No."
My father stood.
"What is it?"
Henry looked at him.
"A consent removing Clare as Northstar's designated observer and approving conversion of certain voting rights."
My father swore.
I stared at the page.
"He forged my signature?"
"We need an examiner to confirm."
"I never signed that."
Henry turned another page.
"There's more."
The next document authorized a consulting arrangement with TMG Strategic Advisory.
I'd never heard of it.
"What is TMG?"
"According to public records, a Delaware LLC."
"Who owns it?"
"We don't know."
"How much did NexusCore pay them?"
Henry looked at my father before answering.
"Eighteen-point-six million dollars over twenty-two months."
My mouth went dry.
"For what?"
"Strategic consulting."
"What consulting?"
"That's what Daniel Cho is trying to determine."
I remembered the Hamptons house.
The dinners.
Lauren's clothes.
Matthew's sudden insistence that we keep separate personal accounts.
"Henry."
"Yes?"
"Find out who owns TMG."
"We already started."
My father came back to my bedside.
"This is no longer only about what happened tonight."
"No."
I looked at the forged signature again.
For seven years, I had thought Matthew stole my confidence.
Then my marriage.
Then my place in the company I helped build.
But if this document was what it appeared to be, he had stolen something far more concrete.
My legal identity.
My authority.
My work.
I closed the folder.
"Find everything."
My father studied me.
"Clare, you don't need to deal with this tonight."
I met his eyes.
"Yes, I do."
Not because I wanted revenge.
Because for the first time in years, I could see the architecture of what Matthew had done.
The violence in the penthouse had not begun with a cane.
May you like
It began years earlier.
One erased signature at a time.
