was exactly what I did as soon as they let me leave."
Lex pulled in a few breaths to steady himself. "Grady followed me back to LA when I refused to answer his calls or respond to his texts. I thought if I just ignored him, he'd go away. But then he confronted me in the parking garage outside my office one night."
"Did he hurt you?" I asked. My hands were already fisting in anticipation of his response.
Lex shook his head. "He didn't have to. He had all the ammunition he needed against me. He just needed to figure out how to use it."
"What do you mean?"
"He knew about the power struggle I was going through with the board of my company. He used that to his advantage. He threatened to go to them and tell them I was losing my vision unless I paid him a hundred grand to go away."
"How would the board knowing that information change anything?" I asked. "Blind people run companies every day. They may need some accommodations here and there, but just because they can't see doesn't mean that they can't run a business."
"A lot of companies have clauses about their executives being healthy enough to run the business. It has to do with not risking the loss of profits if the head of the company has some kind of mental or physical limitation. Since I hadn't yet started to lose my sight, I wasn't obligated to tell anyone. I was going to use the time to buy back more of the company so I could maintain control of it. If the board had found out I was going blind, they could've invoked that clause and tried to force me out. My company designs video games. A CEO who can't see the games that their company is putting out is a hard sell to other organizations that might be interested in a merger or even a buyout."
Lex's explanation made sense. I'd never been in the business world myself, but it was like any other reality… there was always someone waiting in line to grab power wherever and however they could get it. I considered what Lex had told me and said, "Grady didn't go away, did he?"
Lex shook his head. "He was back within a few weeks. I paid him again, then again a couple months later. Each time, he swore it would be the last, but he kept coming back. I think part of me still didn't want to believe he'd intentionally used me. I started doing some digging on him and found out that his boyfriend had a sister who worked for one of my competitors. That company had been trying to acquire mine for years, but for pennies on the dollar. When I realized the whole thing had been a setup from the get-go, I cut Grady off for good. I didn't care what he said he’d do."
"But it didn't end there," I observed.
"No, it didn't. Grady showed up at my house one night. He was enraged and demanding money. When I told him no, he hit me. I told him to get out, but he just hit me again. And again. He said I was ruining everything. I was sure he was going to kill me."
"What happened?" I asked. I felt sick to my stomach as I envisioned Lex lying on the ground and some guy on top of him battering him with his fists.
"My brother King happened. He was in town visiting me and had left to get us some dinner. He got back a few minutes after Grady arrived at my house." Lex's voice dropped off as he spoke. He got choked up when he added, "I thought King was going to kill him."
"But he didn't," I offered.
Lex shook his head. "I managed to stop him. Grady ended up in a coma and King was arrested for assault. The cops didn't care that he'd just been defending me. They said it was too much force… that he'd gone too far. They said he should've stopped when Grady was no longer a threat to me or him or anyone else. Grady ultimately recovered but King spent six months in jail."
"And Grady?" I asked.
"He sued me. Wanted me to pay him ten million for the injuries he sustained."
"Tell me you didn't pay him," I said.
"No, I didn't. I was too busy trying to get King out of jail. I spent every free minute I had trying to find lawyers who could