Chapter 10 - SABRINA DID NOT WANT TO STEAL MERCER
The major twist came from Redfern’s ownership records.
Wyatt expected Sabrina to be the mastermind.
She wasn’t.
Not entirely.
Her twenty-five-percent ownership was real.
Another twenty-five belonged to Edward Pike.
Ten percent belonged to a family trust tied to Sabrina.
The remaining forty percent belonged through layered entities to someone Wyatt knew extremely well.
Mark Ellison.
Wyatt stared at the disclosure.
“No.”
Abraham frowned.
“The former CFO?”
Mark had warned Wyatt about Sabrina.
Mark had given them the old contract.
Why would he also own Redfern?
Wyatt called him with counsel present.
Mark did not deny it.
The truth changed three earlier clues at once.
Mark did not resign because he was simply frightened.
He left after Sabrina offered him a way to profit.
He knew Mercer’s weaknesses.
He knew the property values.
He knew Wyatt relied too much on informal controls.
Mark believed the company should be sold before Wyatt “ran it into the ground through sentiment.”
Sabrina agreed.
Together they began building Redfern.
Mark originally believed Wyatt would voluntarily accept the nineteen-million-dollar valuation because Mercer needed capital and because Redfern promised him a continuing minority interest.
Then Blackridge appeared with thirty-one million.
Mark wanted to abandon Redfern and take the better offer.
Sabrina refused.
Why?
Because her personal side contracts and debts would be exposed.
That was when the partnership fractured.
Mark threatened to disclose everything.
Sabrina reminded him he owned forty percent of Redfern and had already participated in structuring the undisclosed acquisition.
If she fell, he could fall with her.
So Mark left New York.
Then tried to warn Wyatt indirectly without confessing his own role.
The former CFO was not a heroic whistleblower.
He was an accomplice who lost his nerve.
Wyatt sat in silence.
“He helped her.”
“Yes,” Abraham said.
“And then helped us.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“People can do both.”
That was harder to accept than a clean villain.
Mark had genuinely believed Redfern was a financially smarter future for Mercer.
He also stood to make millions.
He genuinely became alarmed when Sabrina escalated.
He also hid his involvement until records made it impossible.
The secret was not that Sabrina planned to steal Mercer.
She believed she was reorganizing a company Wyatt was too emotionally attached to manage rationally.
The crime was not ambition.
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It was treating Wyatt’s legal ownership, consent, and eventually his body as obstacles to be overcome.
And Mark had helped build the transaction that taught her she might succeed.
