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“What are you getting at?” Tommy asks, seeming genuinely perplexed by his statement.
“Okay, where do I begin? Carly introduced you to them, as well as Bill and Dad. Is that correct?” he asks, starting at the beginning of the timeline that Nolan had provided.
“That’s true,” he says without any hesitation.
“Why?” Trey asks suspiciously. “What did she have to gain?”
“Twenty-five million dollars,” he says with a nonchalant flip of his hand. He then leans back with a smug look on his face.
“So you paid her for the introduction?” I ask, as the legal aspects of the transaction begin to intrigue my law-minded brain.
“I had mentioned to her that if she knew of anyone who was interested in buying my stake in Firefly Media, I would pay her five percent of the take,” he says, obviously thinking that it was perfectly rational. “I made the same offer to several others as well.” He continues to stare intently at Trey maintaining his smug look.
“Dad and Bill were okay with her earning a commission from the deal?” Trey presses, dropping his foot back to the floor and sitting up in his seat.
Tommy pauses for a moment, rubbing his chin between his thumb and index finger. “She asked me to keep our arrangement to myself,” he finally admits. “I told her that I had set up an international corporation in Belize to protect my assets. She asked if I would do the same for her.”
“Ahh, so when the sale occurred you simply transferred the money to her account in Belize,” Trey surmises. Judging by the look on his face, we both just figured out why Victor lost trust in Carly.
“I actually gave her stock options that she was able to cash in,” he clarifies. Still seeming convinced that he hadn’t done anything unethical.
“You owned roughly fifty percent of the equity, so that’s about five hundred million,” Trey says, looking up at the ceiling for a couple seconds. “So twenty five million of that went to her. Not bad for making an introduction,” Trey says shaking his head from side to side. “So once Bill took control of the company, he found out that you had enhanced the financials. ‘Then he came back to you and demanded a refund, didn’t he?” Trey speculates. “Did Dad figure everything out as well or did Bill tell him?”
“First of all, I was sorry to hear about Bill’s suicide. I honestly think that he just didn’t understand a new economy company,” Tommy responds, shifting in his chair. “He thought he and Aileen could increase the value of it and Nolan could replace me on TV. I can’t help that the network pulled out once they found out I had sold my stake.”
“Seriously?” Trey asks, rising from his chair. “You hadn’t disclosed that fact to the network in advance?” He leans on Tommy’s desk, looking him right in the eyes.
“I didn’t think it would matter,” Tommy claims, but obviously he had to have known better.
“You seriously thought your could swap out the host and the network would just accept it?” Trey asks, stepping back from the desk and running his hand through his hair in frustration. “I think you wanted to bail before your portfolio companies started going belly up.” He bends down putting his hands back on the desk, staring intently at Tommy. “Early on you could use the profits from the TV show to prop up those companies, but then it got to be too much to support. Am I getting warm?”
“Did Nolan tell you all of this?” Tommy asks, suddenly becoming uncomfortable enough to spring from his chair. “Or are you looking to pick up where Bill left off?” he asks, moving around the desk to confront Trey.
“Whose idea was it for you to become CEO of Addison Media?” Trey pushes back. “Did you really think you could roll Firefly Media into Addison without anyone realizing that you had committed fraud?” he asks as his temper begins to flare. “Is that why Dad was killed or was that just a convenient coincidence?”
“Why don’t you ask Carly?” Tommy replies, narrowing his eyes. “That is if you can find her.” He scoffs. “I know you think you will somehow be able to pin all of this on me, but like I told you before I don’t have anything to do with any of it.”
“So Carly did all of your dirty work?” I ask after seeing that Trey is beginning to lose his cool. “Once all the key players are dead, Carly flees the country. How convenient.”
“I told her that no one would be able to crack her account in Belize, but she insisted on freaking out,” Tommy says bluntly. “As if cleaning out the bank account is going to solve anything.”
