She exhaled. You may have saved it by doing what you did this morning. Being honest with them directly, not letting Pierce spin it, you gave them a reason to trust the company. Not because everything went perfectly, but because when it didn't, someone told the truth. Ryan absorbed that.
PICE is going to say, "I did it to damage him." Pierce is going to say a lot of things. Does anyone believe him? Victoria looked at him steadily. The people who want to believe him will.
The people who have eyes will read the override logs. She paused. You have documentation. Everything you've been keeping, I need you to give a formal statement to the board's investigator. I'll do that.
Ryan, she stopped, started again. What you did this morning, shutting down the line instead of letting the inspection continue. That decision cost us time and money and put the contract at risk in the short term. I know and it was exactly right. Her voice was certain in a way that meant she had made her peace with it before she walked into that bay.
You protected people. You protected the company. You told the truth to a client when the comfortable thing would have been to wait and let Pierce handle the narrative. She held his gaze. That's what I need in this building, not just good engineering.
That he looked at her for a moment. Something was sitting at the edge of what he wanted to say, and he'd learned enough from the past several weeks to know that this was the moment to say it rather than carry it home and set it down in the dark kitchen alone. I'm going to resign, he said. Victoria went still, completely still. What?
I've been thinking about it for a while. Not because of Pierce before Pierce even. Since we he stopped, organize the words. As long as I'm in this building on your payroll, there will always be a version of this morning. There will always be someone who looks at what I do and measures it against who I'm with.
And I can't. He paused. I can't build something real with you while I'm standing in a place where my professional credibility is permanently attached to your name. Even if Pierce is gone tomorrow, that question doesn't go away. Ryan, I'm not leaving you.
He said it clearly. I want to be specific about that. I'm leaving your payroll. That's not the same thing. She was silent for a long moment.
You built something here, she said. 9 years. I'll take 9 years of experience and build something of my own. He held her gaze. I need to know that what I have is mine.
That it doesn't come from proximity to you, not for my ego, for us. Because if I stay here and we become something real, I will never know for certain, and that uncertainty will cost us eventually. The silence in the small room was very complete. Victoria looked at him with an expression he'd never seen on her before. Not the CEO, not the composed executive, not even the woman in jeans at Rudy's.
Something underneath all of those, something that was simply her unguarded. You are choosing me, she said quietly. By leaving. I'm choosing us, he said. By removing the part of this that makes it complicated, she pressed her lips together, looked at the table for a moment, looked back up.
I don't want you to go, she said. I know, but I understand why you are. He nodded. What will you do? She asked.
I have an idea. He paused. Independent consulting, industrial systems engineering. There are companies in this city who need what I do and don't need me to be anyone's anything to get the work. You'll be starting from nothing.
I've rebuilt things from worse states than nothing. She held his gaze for a long moment. He could see her working through it. The part of her that wanted to argue, the part that understood, the part that respected the decision even though it cost her something. When?
She asked. 2 weeks notice. Enough time to document the Holden remediation and hand off properly. Okay. Her voice was steady.
It cost her something to make it steady. And he could tell and that mattered to him in a way that was hard to name. Victoria. Yeah. This doesn't change what I said two weeks ago about staying.
She looked at him. Then what does it change? He thought about how to say it. It changes what I'm staying as, he said finally. I'm not staying as your employee who's also your He paused.
I'm staying as the person who chose you after he cleared away everything that made the choice complicated. That's a different thing. The silence stretched outside the small window. The production floor hummed and moved. The ordinary sounds of a building at work machines running people doing their jobs.
Everything continuing the way it did. Victoria stood up. She didn't move toward the door. She looked at him across the table with a steadiness that had taken 11 years to build and said the only thing left to say. Don't disappear, she said.
Whatever else you do, don't disappear. I won't. Promise me with words, not implication. He held her gaze. I promise.
She nodded once and then she walked back out to the floor, back to the work, back to the difficult conversation she still had to finish with the board. Back to the hundred things that needed her attention, but she walked differently than she had when she'd come in, Ryan thought. Something settled. Something that had been held very carefully finally sat down. Ryan stayed in the small room alone for a moment.