Grant's ears went red. "I didn't know it was your vessel."
"You knew Quaywright had the contract," Tomas said, mild and precise. "I told you on the phone. You said contracts change."
Grant glanced at Tomas as if surprised the assistant had a voice that could enter a room without permission. "I was trying to keep an option open for a client."
"By treating a closed deal as open and a Black woman on a pier as lost," Imani said. "Do you hear how those sit next to each other?"
Frank shifted in his chair. He did not interrupt. Outside, a horn sounded once, short, the kind of sound that meant someone was leaving a slip carefully.
Grant looked at his hands. The nails were clean. The hands themselves looked like hands that had signed a lot of listings and not enough apologies. "My father worked docks in Jacksonville. He was crew for twenty years. I was not trying to insult crew. I was—" He stopped. Started again. "I was trying to keep the pier orderly in my head. That is not an excuse. It is what I was doing. I have sat in committee meetings and listened to people say Quaywright's apprentices would change the character of the marina. I didn't shut that talk down the way I should have. When I saw you, some of that talk was already in my mouth."
Silence stretched. Tomas wrote one line and stopped.
"I am not going to thank you for noticing that," Imani said. "Noticing it is the floor. What I need from you is narrower. You do not speak to my crew as if they are out of place on docks they are licensed to work. You do not soft-list my vessels after you have been told they are under contract. You do not use Thursday's meeting to float standards language aimed at our roster. If you have a safety concern, you put it in writing to the harbor office with specifics. If you have a prejudice, you keep it off my pier."
Grant nodded. The nod looked painful. "I can do that."
"Can," Imani said, "is not the same as will. I will watch for will."
Frank leaned forward. "For the record, in this room: the harbor agreement stands. Apprenticeship berths on Quaywright vessels are valid berths. Anyone harassing crew will lose guest privileges on harbor events for ninety days on a first substantiated complaint. That includes brokers. I am putting that in an email to the full slip list tonight, so nobody can claim surprise."
Grant's face tightened. "Understood."