CHAPTER 9
Warren Pike’s solution arrived dressed as efficiency.
“Route Micah’s endorsements through Northline,” he said, closing Simone’s office door. “They’ll make the Vanguard issue disappear.”
“Northline is partly owned by your brother-in-law.”
“Disclosed at firm level.”
“Not to Micah.”
“Then disclose it.”
“After promising they can suppress a competitor’s campaign?”
Warren’s smile thinned. “You’re making this adversarial.”
“It arrived that way.”
Draft week had turned Morrow Lane into a trading floor. Phones rang behind glass. Assistants carried garment bags and credential packets. On a lobby screen, prospects walked through rehearsed interviews beneath fictional APFF branding.
Warren placed a vendor agreement on her desk. “Northline handles the commercial portfolio. The blurred rider stops circulating. You focus on getting the boy drafted.”
“Micah is not a boy.”
“Christ, Simone.”
“And I don’t trade his endorsement rights for a competitor’s silence.”
“There’s no trade.”
“Put that in writing.”
He stared at her.
She opened a new memorandum and typed the time, attendees, and substance of his proposal while he watched.
“You document colleagues like enemies,” he said.
“Only when colleagues object to documents.”
“You’ll never run this firm.”
The old threat found its mark. Equity, leadership, access—everything she had survived to earn. Simone let it strike and pass through.
“Then the firm will be run by someone comfortable with records.”
Warren left without the vendor agreement.
Leah entered three minutes later. Simone forwarded the memo to her and outside counsel.
“You know he’ll call Celia Brandt,” Leah said.
“He should. I copied her.”
“Remind me never to disappoint you.”
“You do it weekly.”
“And yet I live.”
For the next six hours, they prepared Micah for every possible draft outcome. Simone walked him through late first round, second round, unexpected trades, medical rechecks, and the humiliating television wait networks turned into entertainment.
He listened from his family’s private hotel room, wearing a black T-shirt and no performance smile.
“If I fall?” he asked.
“We find out why. We correct what is correctable. We negotiate the contract available. Your value changes. Your adulthood does not.”
The words held Micah still on the screen.
Simone moved to the next page before the quiet could become personal. “If you are selected late Thursday, we may not have contract data until Friday. Nobody in the room promises family gifts, property purchases, or sponsor deliverables that night.”
His sister leaned into camera range. “Even if a sponsor asks for a celebration post?”
“Micah may post what he wants. He should not create a deliverable before counsel reads the agreement.”
“Can we livestream?” his brother asked.
Micah answered. “No.”
“The hotel could use the exposure.”
“My draft isn’t a hotel campaign.”
The disappointment sharpened. Simone saw Micah absorb it without changing his answer.
They mapped the room: parents closest to Micah, siblings behind, Simone and Leah outside the family circle, independent counsel on secure video, no agency-branded backdrop, one network camera, no open microphones during team calls.
The plan sounded fussy until Simone described the alternative—private contract language captured live, family reactions cut into content, agents inserting themselves into the embrace.
“You’ve seen all of that happen,” Micah said.
“More than once.”
“Were you the agent inserting herself?”
The bluntness made Leah look up.
“Early in my career, I stood too close to a client’s family during a second-round call because a senior partner told me visibility mattered,” Simone said. “I disliked the photograph before it was published. I disliked myself after.”
“So you changed the rule.”
“I changed my conduct.”
Micah’s eyes stayed on hers. “That matters more.”
After the family disconnected, Leah closed the credential spreadsheet. “You told him about Portland.”
“I told him one fact.”
“You never tell clients that story.”
“It answered the question.”
“It also made you human.”
Simone stacked the room diagrams. “Do not be dramatic.”
“Tomorrow night, thirty cameras will point at him. You will know exactly where every one is. Which camera are you worried about?”
Simone’s phone vibrated before she had to answer.
Julian’s message filled the screen.
She called the number. It rang once and diverted to an encrypted voicemail.
“Julian, do not send me documents. Retain counsel. Preserve every device, account, and vendor instruction. If you are attempting to trade information for protection, I cannot negotiate it privately. Have your lawyer contact Marian Rowe.”
She ended the call and forwarded the original message to outside counsel with its metadata intact.
Leah watched. “You didn’t ask if he was all right.”
“He contacted a client matter from inside the suspected agency.”
“He is also your brother.”
“Those facts cannot share a private channel now.”
The answer was correct. It also hurt with the clean edge of every correct boundary Simone had ever used to keep grief from becoming leverage.
His gaze held hers through the screen.
“Come tomorrow,” he said.
“To the draft venue?”
“My private room. Not the network stage.”
“Your family agrees?”
“They will.”
“I attend as your agent.”
“I know.”
“Cameras will see us.”
“They’ll see my agent doing her job.”
Every word was safe. The fact that safety had to be named was not.
“Send Leah the room diagram,” Simone said. “We control seating and access before the crews arrive.”
After the call, her private phone buzzed.
Julian.
She had not spoken to her older brother in eleven months.
Not since he joined Vanguard’s contract-systems group and called her objections moral theater.
They shared auburn hair, their father’s stubbornness, and a childhood spent listening beneath bargaining tables while adults decided whose work counted.
His message contained no greeting.
You know that exception language because I wrote it.
Simone read the sentence until the words lost shape.
Leah stood. “What happened?”
“My brother designed the rider.”
“Can he prove it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does he know Micah received it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does Vanguard know you have the preserved copy?”
Simone looked through the glass at the draft countdown turning red on the lobby screen.
“I don’t know.”
Julian did not answer the voicemail. His lawyer did.
Marian Rowe called Simone from a secure line and confirmed that Julian had requested representation regarding contract systems at Vanguard. She could say nothing about his intended cooperation.
“Do not send me facts through family privilege,” Simone said.
“I would not.”
“Do not ask me for informal assurances.”
“I would not do that either.”
“You sound offended.”
“I sound like someone who knows why you are asking.”
After the call, Simone added Julian to the conflict disclosure for the rider review. She could not negotiate with Vanguard on evidence involving her brother. Independent counsel would control every exchange.
Leah read the draft and leaned against Simone’s desk. “You are building distance before anyone orders it.”
“That is the correct time.”
“And Micah?”
“Is a client preparing for the draft.”
“You used a noun to avoid the question.”
Simone closed the file. “Draft-night access remains professional and documented.”
Leah did not press. Her silence said she had heard the limits of the answer.
Across the lobby, the countdown turned another minute red. Simone had one day to help Micah enter the largest professional moment of his life without making herself part of the spectacle—or pretending the private current between them no longer existed.
Warren’s Northline proposal arrived with a projected revenue chart.
The first year looked spectacular because the chart counted a six-figure family campaign without pricing hotel access, content ownership, or the right to reuse childhood material. Simone added those rights as separate rows. The advantage disappeared.
“You can make any deal look bad by itemizing it,” Warren said.
“Itemizing is how a client learns what the deal is.”
He leaned across her desk. “You are protecting Micah from money he needs.”
“He has not said he needs it.”
“His family has.”
The distinction silenced the room for a moment.
After Warren left, Simone sent the proposal to Leah for an independent conflict check. Northline’s ownership tree led to Warren’s brother-in-law through two entities. The disclosure filed at Morrow Lane named only the first.
Simone amended Micah’s conflict notice and advised him to pause the campaign.
“Can I still choose it after knowing?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Would you think I was wrong?”
“Yes.”
“And execute it?”
“If the terms are lawful and you choose after independent advice.”
Micah smiled without pleasure. “You really do let me be wrong.”
He rejected the campaign.
Warren called that proof Simone had become emotionally invested. She documented the accusation beside the financial conflict and requested a formal review.
At the office window, the draft countdown turned red. Two systems were pressuring her at once: one anonymous, one wearing a partner title.
Only one pretended to be family.
For once, the narrow truth offered no comfort at all.