And if Adrienne is waving documentation as leverage, that's a federal obstruction issue on top of everything else. You're not worried, Victoria said. It wasn't quite a question. He answered it anyway. I'm always worried, he said.
I just don't find worry particularly useful as a primary response. He paused. I'm going to call my attorney. You call yours and then we let the process work a beat. Damian, she said, "Yes.
If this gets more complicated, if the industrial espionage angle opens up the way it might, this company is going to need to be stable. The employees are going to need to see that nothing has shaken the foundation of what we announced. Has anything shaken it? He said. She was quiet for just a moment.
No, she said. Then let's not pretend it has. He said, "Do your job. I'll do mine. The foundation holds." He hung up and called his attorney in the same motion.
She answered on the first ring. I know, she said. Victoria's team called me 40 minutes ago. I've been waiting for you. What do you think Adrien actually has?
Honestly, a pause. I think he has the broker network analyst and he's packaging it as something larger to create negotiating leverage. The language his attorney used problematic is deliberate vagueness. It's designed to make us spend resources investigating something that may not exist. May not.
Damian said, "I've been your attorney for 9 years." She said, "I have never seen you do anything that couldn't withstand a federal microscope. If Adrienne found something real, I want to know what it is." But my read is that this is a man who has run out of actual moves and is playing the board he imagined instead of the one in front of him. Damian thought about the conference room. Adrienne's hand extended in greeting. The warmth, the ease, the practiced professional confidence of a man who was already three moves ahead in a game nobody else knew they were playing or had thought he was.
Stay on it, Damen said. I want to know the moment Sandra has something definitive. You'll know before the hour is out, she said. Sandra Park called at 21:17 that afternoon. His attorney's claim is based on the broker network analyst, she said without preamble.