"I'm completely serious. You built your empire on corruption, Harold. On bribery and exploitation and environmental destruction and connections to organized crime. You hurt people. Destroyed communities. Broke laws for decades. And now you're facing consequences for your actions, and you want me to help you avoid those consequences?"
Harold's voice was desperate now. "Richard, please. If not for me, then for the sake of the business community. If they can do this to me, they can do it to anyone. Today it's Ashford Industries, tomorrow it could be Blackwood Enterprises...."
"No." Richard's voice was final. "It couldn't be Blackwood Enterprises, because we don't engage in the kind of systematic criminality you built your company on. We don't bribe government officials or dump toxic waste or maintain unsafe working conditions. We run a legitimate business, Harold. Apparently that's a concept you never quite grasped."
"So you're just going to let them destroy me."
