Begin Again novel Chapter 128

Like Liam had expected, the board—Clarke included—was firmly on Julian's side, and for two hours, he had to sit and take the tongue lashing from all the senior board members when they nicely asked him to stop his reckless shopping spree!

"Why the hell can't you all see this is a good thing for us? All these small towns are light years behind us, relying on postal services for their goods. If we have shipping depots—"

"That was not part of our expansion plan, Son," Clarke said, his voice barely above a whisper. He was still frail and should not even be sitting in such lengthy meetings. But as the chairman, his presence was required.

"Plans are meant to be altered!" Liam pushed back, refusing to give up on his vision.

"You can't make up for the loss of life by snapping up all these struggling companies!" His mom tried to reason with him.

"I'm giving them a new lease on life, creating jobs, restarting economies! What's the issue?" Liam asked. He couldn't understand why they all couldn't see that they were saving way more lives than the three they had lost.

"Liam!" Matthew shook his head sternly. "No one is blaming you for the issue with the drivers. Let this shit go!"

Before Liam could push further with his agenda, Willow quickly called for a vote. She had things to do and a grand opening for a new art exhibition to attend.

Within ten minutes, the board delivered its devastating blow. Not a single one of them had voted in Liam's favour. He could only keep one of his pet projects, the Sparrow Beach depot. But he had a year to turn it into a profitable outpost.

They all agreed pissing off the mob wasn't the smartest of ideas. But since the negotiations with Lusso were already so advanced, pulling out was no longer an option. Liam, though, wasn't allowed to even think about stealing any more business from the Ivanovs.

Highly pissed with Julian for ratting him out, deeply disappointed with the board for not seeing his vision, Liam stormed out of the boardroom and headed to his office, his assistant hot on his heels.

"Mr Anderson, should I get you something to eat, Sir?" Clara fussed over him while she looked through his schedule on her tablet.

Liam shook his head, he wasn't hungry, and if he couldn't go shopping, he might as well drink himself to death.

"Cancel all my appointments, and you can take the rest of the day off," He told her as he shut the door in her face.

Half a bottle of bourbon later, Matthew and Julian came to find him.

Julian waved his handkerchief like a white flag before poking his head inside. "Is it safe to come in?"

Liam shrugged and returned to the view beyond the glass as he watched the traffic move at a crawling pace on Castle Bridge.

Matthew poured them all a shot, and they joined him in front of the window.

"Look," Julian said after a long stretch of silence, occasionally broken by the sounds of their bustling office as all the assistants and other executives on their floor carried on with their day. "It wasn't personal. But you were on a slippery slope, and I had to reel you in."

Liam glared at him for a second, maybe longer and sipped his cognac.

"I know," he said at last.

Matthew had the balls to address the elephant in the room. "It's not like you to be so reckless and go on a shopping spree, especially when we've lost so much in revenue. Why did you do it?"

Liam twirled the glass in his hands, thinking about his cousin's question. It was far more complicated than a 'shopping spree'.

"I thought if I can save one struggling company at a time and give all those men and women a chance at survival, their families will be okay." He said after some time. "And maybe I won't feel so guilty any more for dropping the ball."

"It's not your fault."

"It is," Liam shook his head. "The signs were there. For weeks there were news reports, and what did I do?"

"We stepped up security," Matthew said.

"It wasn't enough! Now three of our men are dead," Liam gritted his teeth and stuffed his hand in his pocket while he played with his drink with the other. "How do I look at their wives and kids? How do I even begin to make up for that?"

"You couldn't have known! It's the security team's job to monitor these things. Someone dropped the ball there, and a disciplinary process should be followed."

Liam turned to Julian with a wan smile. "I dropped the ball. If anything, disciplinary action should have been taken against me."