Chapter 13 - THE REPAYMENT
Mercer House sold Hudson four months later.
At a loss.
Not catastrophic.
Painful enough that Jolene stopped calling it a temporary liquidity issue.
The Westchester venue was sold too.
The Manhattan club closed.
Forty-one employees lost jobs across the restructuring.
More than four hundred remained employed.
Sloan hated both numbers.
This was why she had refused to treat business consequences like revenge.
Companies were full of people who never attended family dinners.
First Hudson eventually approved a smaller credit facility after Mercer House reduced debt and Jolene agreed to extend her family note.
No Tribeca collateral.
No Sloan guarantee.
Vance remained COO during the transition under independent board oversight.
Tinsley lost responsibility for the club business but remained in a smaller brand role after the new directors reviewed her performance.
Jolene resigned from active board leadership.
She retained her ownership.
For the first time since Graham’s death, ownership and management stopped being treated as the same thing.
Sloan’s remaining company loan was addressed in the restructuring.
Mercer House could not repay $550,000 immediately without damaging working capital.
Sloan agreed to a scheduled repayment over eighteen months at the existing contractual rate.
Jolene called that mercenary.
Vance corrected her.
“It’s the agreement.”
Jolene stared at him.
Sloan heard about it later.
She felt no triumph.
Just exhaustion.
Meanwhile, she filed for divorce.
Vance did not contest the penthouse designation.
He could not.
He had signed it twice.
Their remaining financial issues were manageable.
No children.
Separate retirement accounts.
Defined property.
The hardest part was not money.
It was accepting that a marriage could die gradually long before anybody filed paper.
Vance entered therapy after Sloan told him she would not discuss reconciliation.
“I’m not doing it to get you back,” he said during one mediated meeting.
Sloan replied:
“Good.”
He looked hurt.
“You don’t believe me.”
“I believe you want to believe that.”
Vance almost argued.
May you like
Then stopped.
Progress, Sloan thought, looked annoyingly unimpressive.
