I don't know. That's important, Ava said seriously, because Mrs. Patterson's pancakes are the good kind, but you always burn the edges. He looked at his daughter for a moment. The edges are supposed to be crispy.
Daddy, no, they're not, he breathed. Ava, there's something else. Some people are going to write things about us in the news. About me, about Victoria, maybe about you. And some of what they write might be unkind or confusing.
He held her eyes. If that happens, I need you to know that none of what unkind people say is the truth of who we are. She thought about this. Then, like Kyle at school who told everyone I was bad at math when I'm actually very good at math. Exactly like that, except on a bigger scale.
She nodded sagely. I'll just move my paper. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry, so he did neither. He pulled her into a hug that lasted a long time. She let him.
The next morning Victoria called at 7:15. It's today, she said. 2:00. I've notified the board. I've prepped my team.
I've got the room. A pause. Marcus, there's one more thing. What? Foss knows about this press conference.
He called me this morning. He said She paused. He said if I go ahead with it, he'll move to initiate a vote of no confidence before the press conference ends. He has the votes. He says he can have me removed before I walk back into the building.
The silence on Marcus's end was absolute. Then he said, "Can he?" He might. It depends on two board members who haven't committed. If they go with him, A pause.
Yes, he can. So, you could lose the company today. Yes. And you're still doing the press conference. A beat.
Yes, she said. Why? She was quiet for a moment. Then very simply, because I'm done letting him decide what I'm afraid of. He stood in the kitchen at 7:15 in the morning listening to those words.
He thought about all the things that were on the line. His job, her job, the company, the press, Foss and his votes and his maneuvering and his vision of a world where the people with power defined the people without it. He thought about Ava asking if the baby would know how to make pancakes. He thought about a terrace 41° and two people talking like they had something to say. I'll be there at 1:30.
He said. You don't have to stand up there with me if 1:30. He repeated. Wear something you feel like yourself in, not the armor, yourself. A long pause.
Marcus. Yeah. I think she stopped, started again. I think I might love you. He was quiet for a moment.
Then I know. He said. I think so, too. That's not a normal response to I'll see you at 1:30. He hung up.
He looked at the time. He had exactly 6 hours and 15 minutes before everything in his life either held together or came apart at the seams. He packed Ava's lunch. He dropped her at school. He came home and pressed his suit.
He stood in front of the bathroom mirror for exactly 3 seconds. Then he walked out the door and drove toward whatever was waiting for them. He arrived at 1:23, 7 minutes early, which was exactly how Marcus Reed operated. Not rushing, not late, exactly present before he needed to be because that 7 minutes of stillness before the storm was the difference between walking into something and being ready for it. The lobby of Hale Dynamics headquarters was glass and steel and exactly as intimidating as it was designed to be.
He had been here before, of course, for contractor meetings, for fleet reviews, for the kind of administrative appointments that took 40 minutes and required signing three forms. He had sat in the waiting area in his work clothes and no one had looked at him twice. Today was different. Today every person who passed through that lobby and saw him in his gray suit registered something, a flicker of recognition, a second glance, a whispered word to the person next to them. The photo from the tabloid was everywhere.
He knew that. His face was a story people were already consuming, already forming opinions about, and the opinions were visible on their faces if you knew how to read them. He knew how to read them. He stood at the security desk and gave his name. The guard, a young man, maybe 25, who was clearly trying to be professional, looked at his screen, looked at Marcus, looked at his screen again.
"Mr. Reed?" "Yes, sir." "Miss Hale's assistant is coming down." "Thank you," Marcus said.
He stood and waited. He did not look around to count the stairs. He looked straight ahead and breathed. Nina Victoria's assistant appeared from the elevator at 1:26. She was as composed as always, but her eyes were doing something different today, something that read as both nervous and deeply determined.
"Mr. Reed," she said. "Thank you for coming." "Of course." She walked him to the elevator.
In the small steel box of it going up, she said without looking at him, "She's been preparing since 6:00 this morning. She's ready." A pause. "But she was asking about you." "Asking what?"
Nina glanced at him. "Whether you'd actually come." He said nothing. The elevator opened. Victoria was standing at the end of the hall, not in her office, in the hallway already, which told him that she had been waiting somewhere she could see the elevator doors.
She was wearing a dark navy dress, simple, precise, nothing performative about it. Her hair was down, which he had not seen before in any professional context. He had told her to wear something she felt like herself in, and she had. She walked to him and stopped 2 ft away and looked at him with an expression he could only describe as complicated relief, like someone who had been holding their breath under water and had just broken the surface. "You came."
she said. "I said I would." "I know." A pause. "I know you did."
He looked at her carefully. Her hands were steady. Her chin was up. The armor was there, but it was her armor now worn by choice, not desperation. There was a difference, and he could see it.
"How are you?" he asked. "Terrified." she said. No hesitation.
She had learned something from him apparently, or maybe she had always known how to tell the truth and just needed practice doing it out loud. "And completely certain, which is a strange combination." "The best decisions usually feel that way." he said. She nodded once.
"Then?" "Foss is already in the building." "He brought two other board members." "They're in the third floor conference room." "My general counsel thinks he's waiting to see if I actually go through with it before he triggers the vote."
"He's bluffing." Marcus said. She looked at him. "You don't know that." "No."
"But I know he expected you to back down by now, and you haven't." "That's already not according to his plan." She held his gaze for a moment. "The room is set up on the second floor." she said.
"12 press outlets, two network affiliates, three business journals. My PR director is going to introduce me." "I speak for approximately eight minutes, then questions." She paused. "You'll stand to my left, slightly behind, not hidden, visible."
"Understood." "The board members who are supporting me are watching the live stream from upstairs." "My general counsel has been monitoring Foss's communication with the other two undecided votes." She paused. "If he makes his move, it'll happen during or immediately after the press conference.
He wants maximum visibility for the removal, maximum damage. "Then let's not give him maximum damage," Marcus said. "Let's give him maximum proof that this didn't break you." She looked at him. Something moved through her eyes, deep, specific, not easy to name.
Then she said, "My mother is here." He blinked. Eleanor? "She arrived 40 minutes ago. She's She's not here to stop it."
Victoria's voice was careful. "She said she didn't want to watch it from home." A pause. "She's in my office. She asked me to tell you" She stopped.
"What?" Victoria's mouth curved, not quite a smile, something smaller and realer than that. "She said, 'Tell him his suit looks appropriate.'" Marcus processed that. From Eleanor Hale, he understood that was approximately equivalent to a standing ovation. "Tell her thank you," he said.