15. Marcus #2
Because Whitmore is not wrong about timing. Proof takes longer than accusation. Corrections move more slowly than sabotage, and metadata does not trend as easily as scandal. By the time we prove the emails were manipulated, the public may have already decided who Sloane is in this story.
But removing her now would not protect her. It would confirm every lie.
“If the proof comes late,” I say, “then we make sure Crossridge is standing beside her when it does.”
Graham watches me for a long moment, and I know exactly what he hears beneath the strategy. Not just a response plan or a boardroom position, but a line drawn far later than it should have been.
Across the table, Declan’s mouth tightens slightly, the expression looking almost like approval.
Whitmore sits back. “You are making this personal.”
“No,” I say. “Julian made this personal. I’m just refusing to pretend the correct response is professional cowardice.”
That gets a reaction. A small one, but enough. Graham says my name once, not as sharply as he might have. I look away from Whitmore before the conversation becomes less useful.
“Here is what happens next,” I say. “We stop chasing the narrative every time he moves it. We define the attack. We make the manipulation the story. We do not offer Sloane as proof. We take this seriously.”
“And if Ms. Parker refuses to lead?” Hensley asks.
The question catches me off guard. Because that’s possible. No, more than possible. Likely.
Sloane made herself clear in her office. You don’t get to fix this. She will see any attempt from me as control, any defense as management, any protection as proof that I still think damage is mine to allocate and repair.
I don’t know how to reach her right now, but that isn’t something I can admit in this room.
“If Sloane refuses,” I say carefully, “then we proceed with legal and Graham as the public face while preserving her position internally.”
Whitmore nods once, like that is the compromise he wanted, even though we both know it isn’t.
“But we do not frame her absence as removal,” I add. “We do not leak distance. We do not allow anyone inside or outside this company to suggest she was sidelined because the accusations had merit.”
Graham’s approval is immediate. “Agreed.”
Adrian nods. Declan does too. Whitmore doesn’t, but he also doesn’t argue. For now, that’s enough.
The meeting continues for another twenty minutes. Legal timelines, investor calls, draft statements, media strategy, and forensic review. Every sentence feels necessary and too slow at the same time. By the end, the board has agreed to the three-track strategy, though no one looks satisfied.
No one should. When the last board member leaves, the room stays quiet. Graham closes the door himself.
The second it clicks shut, Declan speaks. “That was subtle.”
“I wasn’t aiming for subtle.”
“No,” Adrian says dryly. “That was clear.”
I disconnect my laptop. “We don’t have time to make board members comfortable.”
Graham turns from the door, his expression heavier now that the audience is gone. “Comfort wasn’t the issue.”
I look at him.
He doesn’t soften the point. “You were right. But if you go to Sloane with that same energy, she’ll shut the door in your face.”
“She already did.”
Declan leans back in his chair. “Then try not sounding like a man arriving with a battle plan she didn’t ask for.”
I give him a look.
He shrugs. “Radical suggestion, I know.”
Adrian steps closer to the table. “She thinks you used her.”
“I didn’t.”
“No,” Graham says. “But that doesn’t mean she’s wrong about everything else.”
He has a point, and I hate that. Graham knows it too.
He crosses his arms, gaze steady. “When Tessa was under pressure, I thought protecting her meant controlling the situation around her. I convinced myself that if I could absorb enough of the risk, she would be safer.”
“And?”
“And I still hurt her.” His jaw tightens once. “Not because I intended to. Because I treated my fear as a strategy.”
No one speaks after that. The room feels different now, not like a boardroom weighing options, but like a room taking stock of consequences.
I look at the closed door, then at the source map still frozen on the screen. Apex. Julian. The accounts. The leak chain. Proof of an attack and not nearly enough to undo the damage already done.
“What did you do?” I ask.
Graham’s expression shifts slightly. “Eventually?”
“Yes.”
“I stopped trying to make the decision for her.”
Simple, but not easy.
Declan pushes to his feet. “And before the emotional seminar continues, we still have a hostile former almost-founder using media channels to carve up the company from the outside.”
“Legal is moving,” Adrian says. “But Julian won’t stop at the emails.”
“No,” Graham agrees. “He escalates when cornered.”
I look back at the screen.
Julian Pierce. The name and threat are finally clear.
And still, the only thing I can think is that Sloane is somewhere in this building watching strangers call her a fraud while deciding whether I am just another man who dressed control up as care.
My phone vibrates.
Dana.
I put it on speaker. “What?”
Her voice is tight. “You need to see this.”
The room goes still around me.
“What happened?”
“There’s another post moving,” she says. “Not the emails this time. It’s about Sloane’s old agency.”
My hand tightens around the phone. Graham steps closer.
"They're connecting her ex to the leak narrative," Dana says. "Trying to make it look like controversy follows her."
For a second, everything in me goes cold. This is not just an attack on her credibility. This is an attack on the one wound she trusted me enough to show.
Declan curses. Adrian is already reaching for his phone. Graham’s expression turns lethal. I close my eyes once, only long enough to get control of the part of me that wants to tear through every wall between me and the person responsible.
Then I open them.
“Where is Sloane?”
Dana’s silence tells me more than I want to know.
“She left,” Dana says quietly. “About ten minutes ago.”
Something tightens in my chest before I can stop it. I look toward the door, already moving before Graham says my name.
Because for all the evidence on the screen, all the strategy we just built, all the proof that Julian is behind this, and all the certainty that Crossridge will not sacrifice her, it might not matter.
Not if Sloane has already decided there is nothing left here worth staying for.