She looked at Voss. Then she looked at Howard Pressman. Howard, she said, what do you think? Howard Pressman closed both documents, set them side by side, and said four words that dismantled eight months of Richard Voss's careful construction. I think we're done.
What happened next moved with the particular speed of institutional reckoning, Voss attempted twice more to redirect, questioning the forensic methodology, suggesting the comparison required more time for independent review. Proposing a subcommittee, each attempt was met with the specific quality of silence. That means the room has already decided. Eleanor Marsh called a procedural vote on suspending the leadership review. It passed 8 to1.
Howard Pressman abstained. Voss voted no and said nothing else. The matter of Nathan Cross was referred to outside council for assessment of potential criminal exposure. Voss was informed through James Whitfield in language so precise it could have been carved from stone that the board would be reviewing his own position and the circumstances of his share acquisitions through a process that was now also in outside council's hands. Voss stood.
He buttoned his jacket. He looked at Victoria one last time and whatever he saw in her face, the stillness, the completeness of it, the absolute absence of triumph. Because Victoria Hayes was not performing victory. She was simply standing in the truth made whatever he'd been about to say stay behind his teeth. He walked out.
The door closed. Eleanor Marsh looked at Victoria. "I'm sorry," she said simply. "This should have been caught earlier. " "It was caught," Victoria said. That's what matters.
She looked at Darius. He looked back. The moment lasted 3 seconds and contained more than 3 seconds could normally hold. He walked to the door first because staying in the room any longer than necessary was not the move. And the next 10 minutes would be board business and legal logistics and the efficient machinery of an institution resolving a crisis in the way institutions do.
And none of that required him. Victoria caught up with him in the hallway outside. She didn't say anything for a moment. She just stood beside him and breathed and he let her because she had just done something enormous and she needed 30 seconds of not performing anything for anyone. Then she said, "You didn't sit down.
I know the whole meeting. You stood against the wall. I wanted you to be able to see me. " He said, "In case you needed to. " She turned and looked at him fully. Her eyes were bright and her voice was very controlled and she was working extremely hard to stay in the professional register of this conversation and not cross into the one that was pressing against the inside of it. Did I?
She asked. Need to? He thought about the two moments during the meeting when her eyes had moved briefly to where he stood. Quick involuntary checks. The same reflex as reaching for something you need to know is there.