But this three-year journey was not the end of the saga; it was just the end of its opening chapters. The denouement was yet to come. The drama began long before the DOJ even challenged the transaction. Hostility among the parties emerged almost as soon as the ink was dry on the Merger Agreement. As in many cases, it boiled down to a power struggle: "Anthem saw itself as the acquirer; Cigna saw the parties as equals." Cigna believed that its CEO, David Cordani, would be appointed COO, making him second in line to run the combined company. Anthem had other ideas, at one point stating that "there can be no future for [Cordani] and by definition for his loyalists." Paying $54 billion entitled it to treat Cigna as its property to do with as it pleased, or so it believed.