Read Chapter 20: A Shark's Offer

The boardroom clock read 8:02 when Pierce walked in, not waiting for an invitation. He wore a thousand-pound suit with an open collar, the kind of casual that cost more than most people's mortgages, and he carried a single manila folder like it held a death warrant.

"Ahead of schedule," James said, not rising from his chair.

"I'm a morning person." Pierce set the folder on the table between them, kept his hand on it. "And I figured you'd want to get this over with before the vote."

"The vote's postponed. CFO died. You may have heard."

Pierce's smile didn't move. "I heard. Tragic thing. But that's exactly why you need to hear what I have to say."

James kept his face still. The players were hours from a relegation six-pointer, the sponsor package sat unsigned in his briefcase, and Reeves's nail marks were still burned into his memory. He didn't have time for a rich man's theater.

"My consortium," Pierce said, "is prepared to acquire the club's debt from your owner's syndicate partners. In full. Cash, by end of week."

The words landed like a punch James had been expecting but still couldn't fully absorb. "In exchange for what?"

"Eighty percent equity. Board control. And your immediate resignation, effective the moment the ink dries."

James let out a breath that was almost a laugh. "So you want me to hand you the club I'm saving."

"You're not saving it. You're treading water in a tsunami. The points deduction is coming. The training ground collapses into administration by month's end if that debt isn't settled. Your Nigerian sponsor is unproven. I'm offering certainty."

"Certainty that you own a bankrupt club with a dodgy transfer history. That's not certainty, that's a gamble."

Pierce leaned back, spreading his hands. "I'm not the one gambling. I've seen your books. I know what Levi's people have buried in them. I know why Reeves is dead."

James's blood went cold, but he held Pierce's gaze. "Do you."

"I know the League investigation is compromised. I know your owner built the debt on purpose. And I know you're the only thing standing between this club and the shredder." Pierce tapped the folder. "I respect that. It's why I'm giving you the chance to walk away clean instead of being carried out."

"Generous."

"I'm a generous man." Pierce opened the folder, slid out a sheet of paper. "Your contract has a morality clause. If the League determines you were in possession of evidence regarding financial irregularities—"

"You gave me that evidence."

"I gave you a warning. The documents came from your own investigation." Pierce's smile widened. "My lawyers can make that distinction very uncomfortable for you. And you know what happens to sporting directors who get banned from football."

James stood slowly. The clock read 8:05. Somewhere in a training ground across town, his manager was running the warm-up, the players unaware their entire future was being negotiated in a glass box above the stadium.

"You want this club because it's cheap and desperate," James said. "You want me out because I'd spend every day unraveling the mess you're planning to inherit and clean up into something profitable. I've seen how American guys like you operate. Buy the debt, strip the assets, flip the brand."

Pierce didn't deny it. "This isn't a charity, Okafor. Football is business. That club is a product. I'm offering it a future."

"With no history. No soul. No players who'll fight for a rent check."

"Soul doesn't pay wages."

The door opened. Eddie stuck his head in, caught James's eye, and held up his phone with three words on the screen: *Kickoff in 30.*

James nodded. He looked back at Pierce. "You need to leave. The vote happens at 8:15, with or without you in the room."

"The vote doesn't matter if the club dies by Friday. My offer stands until midnight. After that, the syndicate owns you completely, and they won't be as gentle as I am."

He left the folder on the table. James watched him go, then picked it up, flipped through it—term sheets, equity structures, a draft press release announcing James's departure. They'd prepared everything. They'd been preparing for weeks.

*Of course they had. They knew the club would be desperate by now.*

His phone buzzed. Eddie again: *Turn on the telly.*

James found the remote, turned the screen to the club channel. The away match had started. His players, the ones he'd talked to after Reeves's death, the ones he'd told that the club was worth fighting for—they were tearing apart the opposition. Three goals in twenty minutes. The commentator was practically screaming about a first-half demolition.

The players knew. They knew what was at stake. And they were answering.

James looked at the folder in his hands. At Pierce's offer of certainty, of money, of survival on someone else's terms.

His phone rang. The screen showed a Nigerian area code. The sponsor's executive team, calling to confirm final signatures.

He let it ring. Once. Twice.

Pierce's offer burned in his hand. The evidence in his briefcase burned brighter. He had a debt guarantee. He had bank accounts. He had a dead CFO whose murder he couldn't prove and a League official who'd betrayed him from the inside.

The sponsor would call back. He had twenty minutes until the board vote. He had a team that was fighting like the club's life depended on it, because it did.

James dropped Pierce's folder into the shredder beside the desk. It swallowed the paper with a mechanical whine.

His phone buzzed with a text from Eddie: *You watching this?*

James typed back: *Make sure the board sees the score.*

At 8:14, he walked into the boardroom. The directors were there, Whitmore among them, looking like men who'd already decided which way to jump. James set his sponsor's term sheet on the table and made his case to people who didn't want to hear it.

He didn't think about Pierce's folder. He didn't think about the midnight deadline. He thought about his players, about the kids in the stands who would never understand the numbers but understood every goal.

At 8:42, the vote came. Four to three in his favor.

He had won a battle. The war ended at midnight, when the sponsor's money either arrived or didn't—and James had just bet the club's survival on a handshake with a tech company in Lagos.