Chapter 4 - Travis’s Company Was Getting Paid Three Different Ways
The independent accountant was Eleanor Price, fifty-eight, a Richmond CPA specializing in closely held family businesses.
She disliked family explanations.
“Show me the contract.”
Good.
The first contracts were ordinary.
Forge House Athletics leased:
8,200 square feet
inside Building B.
Market rent:
approximately $13 per square foot.
Travis paid:
$12.50.
Close enough.
Then 2021.
Bennett Field’s general manager resigned.
Natalie proposed:
NT Forge Management temporarily oversee:
maintenance scheduling,
front-desk staffing,
program coordination.
Monthly management fee:
$11,500
plus:
6% of gross revenue from new athletic programs developed by NT Forge.
Grant asked:
“Temporary?”
Natalie said:
“Six months.”
It continued:
thirty-two months.
Why?
It worked.
Mostly.
Revenue recovered.
Travis expanded:
youth conditioning,
MMA,
adult fitness.
Members liked several programs.
Then problems.
NT Forge was being paid:
1. rent benefit from favorable lease;
2. monthly management fee;
3. percentage of certain program revenue.
Not automatically improper.
Could still be market.
Then one more:
maintenance procurement markup.
NT Forge subcontracted:
cleaning,
minor repairs,
equipment services.
Added:
10% administrative fee.
Again:
not automatically outrageous.
But related-party.
Who approved?
Natalie.
As:
30% member,
manager,
co-owner of NT Forge.
And as Claire’s proxy.
Conflict everywhere.
Then Grant.
He had approved the initial six-month management contract.
Not later extensions.
Extensions were signed under manager authority and member consents Natalie prepared.
Grant often received copies after.
Why didn't he intervene?
He was tired.
His wife had died in 2019.
Then pandemic.
He wanted:
retire.
Natalie and Travis made problems disappear.
Grant let them.
That was his accountability.
Then Claire.
Annual financial packets went to her.
She opened:
tax K-1,
distribution summary.
Rarely read:
management detail.
One statement clearly listed:
NT Forge Management Fees: $138,000
Claire remembered seeing it.
She texted Natalie:
Travis making good money off Dad now?
Natalie replied:
He’s running half the place.
Claire responded:
Fair enough if the numbers work.
There.
Claire was not entirely unaware.
She knew Travis’s company was paid.
She did not know:
all three streams,
contract extension,
ownership conversion.
Still, she had chosen:
not to ask.
Then Sophie.
Why did Travis’s behavior toward Sophie become increasingly ugly?
Because Claire began questioning his role only after moving back closer to Fredericksburg.
Two months before backyard incident, Sophie enrolled in:
youth strength program
at Bennett Field.
Claire wanted:
general conditioning.
Travis tried to move her into:
combat-sports fundamentals.
Claire said no.
Travis mocked:
“Afraid she’ll like real training?”
Claire withdrew Sophie from his program entirely.
That hurt:
ego,
revenue,
family status.
Then Claire discovered:
Forge House branding on the main building.
She asked Grant:
“Since when is Travis’s logo bigger than Bennett?”
Grant said:
“Marketing.”
Claire began paying attention.
At member meeting she asked:
management fees,
leases,
capital structure.
Natalie became defensive.
Travis became hostile.
The backyard confrontation was not random.
It was pressure.
He wanted Claire to back down.
Especially in front of Sophie.
If he could make Claire look:
weak,
irrational,
afraid,
he could reinforce the family narrative:
Claire doesn't understand what we've built here.
Then challenge coin exposed:
he had searched her box.
Eleanor’s audit also found:
$41,700 in management/procurement fees above comparable market benchmarks across three years.
Not $400,000.
Not massive theft.
Some contracts were:
fair.
Some:
rich.
The auditor recommended:
$27,600 reimbursement,
$14,100 treated as disputed but defensible based on extra project scope.
Natalie and Travis disagreed.
Independent mediator later negotiated:
$25,000 repayment from NT Forge.
Then the 12% ownership.
Independent valuation showed:
Natalie and Travis’s $196,000 emergency contribution had genuinely carried unusual risk.
If treated as member loan at the time, fair return could have been:
principal plus 5–7% interest.
If treated as equity, some dilution might be commercially defensible.
But the specific conversion:
valued Bennett Field far too low.
The restructuring used a distressed valuation of:
$1.9 million
despite:
land alone having likely value above $3 million.
That made 12% cheap.
Who chose valuation?
Travis provided:
broker opinion.
Not independent appraisal.
That was serious.
Then Eleanor asked Natalie:
“Did Claire know this valuation?”
“No.”
“Did Grant?”
“He saw the packet.”
Grant looked ashamed.
He had not read deeply.
Then:
“Did counsel recommend independent conflict review?”
Natalie nodded.
“Yes.”
“Did you obtain it?”
“No.”
There.
The problem was no longer merely:
broad proxy.
It was:
self-dealing without enough safeguards.
May you like
NT Forge had provided real management work and real emergency capital, but its contracts and permanent equity conversion were approved through a conflict-heavy process that Natalie controlled while representing Claire. Part 5 would show why Natalie believed she had earned more than Claire—and how years of resentment turned “I stayed” into “I deserve her share.”
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