CHAPTER 181: Nexus

POV: Avalon Pierce

Margaret called at 9AM while Maya was still there and Elena was asleep on Maya’s chest. Selene was in the shower for the first time in two days and the apartment smelled like coffee and the warm disorder of a home that had recently become three people instead of two.

He stepped into the study and closed the door quietly.

“Talk,” he said.

“Edward Pierce’s estate,” Margaret said. “Patricia Ruiz wasn’t exaggerating. He left the foundation eleven million dollars. Through a trust established three years ago before the investigation or any of this.”

“Three years ago,” Avalon said.

“He knew it was coming,” Margaret said. “He’d been watching the foundation from a distance since its announcement and he set aside the money before he ever agreed to cooperate.”

“He was planning to answer for it,” Avalon said. “Before anyone asked him to.”

“Yes,” Margaret said. “His lawyer says he’d been trying to figure out how for years. The foundation gave him somewhere to put it.”

Avalon looked at the photograph on the study wall. His father laughing, Nene’s young self with Robert Laine. And now Edward Pierce, who had done the wrong thing and spent forty five years looking for the right response, had found it finally from a house in Marin with a carefully tended garden.

“There’s something else,” Margaret said.

“Tell me.”

“The Nexus board called this morning,” she said. “Before I could call you. I’m sorry, I should have led with this.”

He went still.

“Which board member?” he asked.

“Daniel Reyes,” she said. “He says there’s been a formal approach. An acquisition offer for Nexus from a media conglomerate called Vantara Group.”

“I know Vantara,” he said. “They’ve been buying independent platforms for two years.”

“They’re offering four billion,” Margaret said.

“Nexus is worth six,” he said immediately.

“I know,” she said. “Daniel thinks they’re opening low to see if you’re distracted.”

He almost laughed.

“I just had a baby,” he said. “Of course I’m distracted.”

“Yes,” Margaret said. “Which is exactly what they’re counting on.”

He came out of the study and found Selene standing in the corridor in a towel with wet hair, Elena now in her arms, Maya gone to get more food from somewhere, and she was looking at him with the expression she wore when she already knew something had happened and was waiting for him to say it.

“Edward left eleven million to the foundation,” he said.

“I heard Margaret’s voice,” she said. “There’s more.”

“Vantara Group made an acquisition offer for Nexus.”

She was quiet for a moment.

“How much?” she asked.

“Four billion,” he said. “It’s worth six. They’re really testing me.”

“Because you just had a baby,” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

“Are you going to sell?” she asked.

“No,” he said.

“Then what’s the problem?” she asked.

He looked at her.

“The problem is that four billion dollars is four billion dollars and they know that and they’re going to keep pushing and right now I have a four day old daughter and a foundation that just received eleven million dollars and I’m standing in my corridor at 9 in the morning and I’m supposed to be able to think clearly about all of it simultaneously.”

She looked at him for a long moment then she crossed to him and kissed him.

When she pulled back he looked at her.

“Four to six weeks,” she said.

“You keep bringing that up,” he said.

“I keep meaning it,” she said. “Go deal with Vantara. I have eleven million dollars of foundation work to think about.”

“You’re on maternity leave,” he said.

“Amara would like to discuss that characterization,” she said.

“Amara isn’t here,” he said.

“Amara is always here in spirit,” she said. “Call the board and I’ll call Patricia.”

The emergency board call happened at 11AM.

Six board members. Avalon at the kitchen counter because Elena was asleep in the bassinet two feet away and he was not leaving the room she was in, which he recognized was irrational and did not change his position on.

Daniel Reyes opened.

“Vantara’s offer came through formal channels yesterday evening,” Daniel said. “Four billion for full acquisition and they want an answer within thirty days.”

“The answer is no,” Avalon said.

“Avalon—”

“The answer is no,” he said again. “Nexus isn’t for sale. Not at four billion, six or at any number they’re going to offer because this isn’t about the number.”

“Then what is it about?” Daniel asked carefully.

“Vantara buys platforms and hollows them out,” Avalon said. “They will acquire the user base and the revenue and they’ll strip the editorial independence within eighteen months. I’ve watched them do it three times. Nexus’s value isn’t the platform. It’s what the platform refuses to become and the moment Vantara owns it, that’s gone.”

“Four billion dollars,” said James Whitmore, the newest board member, who had a habit of stating numbers as if their repetition was an argument.

“I know what four billion dollars is,” Avalon said. “I also know what Nexus is and we’re not selling.”

“The shareholders—” Daniel started.

“I have controlling interest,” Avalon said. “Which means I have this conversation. Not them.” He paused. “What I want to know is how Vantara knew to approach now and who told them I was distracted.”

Silence on the call.

“Daniel,” Avalon said.

“I don’t know what you’re implying,” Daniel said.

“I’m not implying anything,” Avalon said. “I’m asking directly. Did anyone on this board have contact with Vantara before this offer arrived.”

Another silence.

Longer this time.

“I had lunch with Marcus Webb three weeks ago,” Daniel said finally. “He’s on Vantara’s advisory board but it was social.”

“Did my daughter come up?” Avalon asked.

A pause.

“The pregnancy may have been mentioned,” Daniel said.

Avalon looked at Elena in the bassinet.

“Daniel,” he said. “You’ve been on this board for four years. So, I need to know if that lunch was social or if it was something else.”

“It was social,” Daniel said.

“I need to believe that,” Avalon said. “I don’t yet. Give me a reason to.”

After the call Selene appeared in the kitchen doorway with two cups of coffee.

“Daniel,” she said.

“Possibly,” he said.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“Watch him,” he said. “And counter the offer formally. Make it public that Nexus rejected Vantara’s approach and make it loud enough that they understand the distraction strategy didn’t work.”

“And if they come back with six billion,” she said.

“Then I reject six billion,” he said. “Nexus exists for a reason. The moment the reason stops mattering the number becomes relevant but the reason still matters.”

She handed him the coffee.

“That’s the most Nene thing you’ve ever said,” she said.

He looked at the coffee.

“It is, isn’t it,” he said.

“She’d be insufferable about it,” Selene said.

“Completely,” he said.

Elena made a sound in the bassinet.

Both of them turned.

She was still asleep but had opinions about something apparently.

“She agrees with you,” Selene said.

“She always does,” he said.

“She absolutely doesn’t,” Selene said. “She’s four days old and she already has your stubbornness and my instincts and it’s going to be a very interesting eighteen years.”

“At least,” he said.

“At least,” she agreed.

That evening Selene called Amara.

He heard her voice from the bedroom, low and focused, the foundation voice, the one that meant something was being built even during maternity leave that she wasn’t officially on.

He sat in the living room with Elena on his chest and thought about Vantara and Daniel Reyes.

They weren’t.

He’d known that the moment Daniel said the number and  felt nothing except clarity.

Nexus wasn’t for sale because Nexus was the thing that had let him build everything else. The platform that had made Pierce Holdings more than a holding company, that had given the foundation visibility and had let Rachel Torres publish the story about the displacement bonds and have it shared four hundred times in a morning.

You didn’t sell the thing that made the other things possible.

He looked at Elena.

She was awake, looking at the ceiling with the focused gravity she brought to everything, which was all ceilings and lights and faces and the general bewildering fact of existence.

“Nexus isn’t for sale,” he told her quietly. “In case you were wondering.”

She looked at him.

“I know you weren’t wondering,” he said. “You have bigger concerns but it’s yours someday if you want it. Or it isn’t. Your choice entirely.”

She made a sound.

“Exactly,” he said.

His phone buzzed.

A message from a number he didn’t recognize.

Mr. Pierce. My name is Marcus Webb. I’m on Vantara’s advisory board. I think there’s been a misunderstanding about the nature of our interest in Nexus. I’d like to meet with you in person. Without lawyers, I have something to tell you that Daniel Reyes doesn’t know I’m telling you.

Avalon read it twice.

Something about it was wrong and he just could feel it.

Not the offer to meet or  to meet without lawyers.

The last line.

Something Daniel Reyes doesn’t know I’m telling you.

Which meant Webb and Daniel had discussed more than lunch.

Which also meant Daniel had lied to the board this morning and the distraction strategy wasn’t just opportunistic.

It had been planned.