“This woman called two days before the reservation,” Luca said. “She told Greg that a family member might show up who was not welcome, and that it would be a personal favor if he handled it discreetly. Greg didn’t tell me. Greg made this decision on his own.”
“Are you going to fire him?”
Luca leaned back.
“That is up to you, I think.”
“Why would it be up to me?”
He gave me this look.
“Because in three weeks, you will own this building. And I am going to recommend that whoever operates this space in the future keeps my staff or doesn’t based on your judgment. Greg has been with me eleven years. He’s good at his job. He made a terrible decision, but you’re the one he wronged.”
I thought about it.
“Don’t fire him. Not yet. Let it play out.”
Luca nodded slowly.
“You’re going to do something, aren’t you?”
“I’m going to do several things. None of them involve Greg.”
Over the next two weeks, I operated on two separate tracks.
Track one was the property deal, which was progressing normally.
Inspections, title work, lease assignments.
Luca and I were on the same page.
The closing date was set for May 15th.
Track two was the thing I couldn’t stop thinking about.
My dad’s money.
I called a buddy of mine named Ray who works in commercial lending.
Not because I needed a loan, but because Ray has connections in the state regulatory world, and I needed to ask a question that I couldn’t ask officially.
“Ray, hypothetically, if I wanted to know whether a small property management company was in any kind of regulatory trouble, how would I find out?”
“What kind of trouble?”
“The kind where client money might not be where it’s supposed to be.”
Ray was quiet for a second.
“Is this about a deal?”
“It’s about family.”
“Give me the company name. I’ll make a call.”
I gave him Derek’s company name.
Hardrove Property Group.
Two days later, Ray called me back.
“Michael, I’m going to tell you what I found out, and then I’m going to tell you that you didn’t hear it from me. Hardrove Property Group is under preliminary investigation by the State Real Estate Commission. The complaint is about commingling of client escrow funds. It hasn’t gone public yet, but there’s an active inquiry.”
Commingling.
For those of you who don’t work in real estate, that means mixing client money with company operating funds.
It’s not just unethical.
It’s the kind of thing that gets your license revoked.
And it meant that Derek’s company wasn’t expanding.
It was leaking.
And Vanessa wanted my father to pour $400,000 into it.
I didn’t panic.
I didn’t call anyone.
I sat with the information for a full day because, in my experience, the worst decisions get made in the first twenty-four hours after you learn something that makes you angry.
Here’s what I decided.
I was not going to confront Vanessa.
I was not going to confront Derek.
I was not going to call my dad and say, “Don’t invest in Derek’s company.”
Because if I did any of those things, Vanessa would frame it as jealousy.
She’d say I was trying to undermine her husband because my own business was failing.
She’d already laid the groundwork for that narrative.
Any direct approach would play right into it.
Instead, I needed Dad to get the information from a source he trusted that wasn’t me.
I called Dad’s financial adviser, a guy named Tom Gwyn.
Tom and I had met at a Chamber of Commerce event two years ago, and we’d stayed in touch professionally.
I didn’t know if Dad had talked to Tom about the investment, but I figured it was worth asking.
“Tom, this is a weird call, and I want to be upfront about why I’m making it. I have reason to believe my father is being pressured to make a large investment in a company that may be under state investigation. I’m not asking you to breach confidentiality. I’m asking if you’re aware, and if you’re not, I think you should be.”
Tom was professional about it.
He didn’t confirm or deny any specifics, but he said, “I appreciate the heads-up, Michael. I take my fiduciary responsibility seriously.”
That was enough.
Tom would do his own digging.
And if Dad came to Tom asking about moving $400,000 into Derek’s company, Tom would have the information he needed to push back.
Meanwhile, I kept showing up to family stuff.
Mother’s Day brunch, I was there.