Meridian Consulting incorporated by your brother-in-law. Same address as your beach house Marcus. You used the beach house address. Her voice was almost pitying.
6 years of theft and you used the beach house address. Ryan found it in an afternoon. Marcus Webb looked down the table at Ryan Carter, and Ryan looked back at him, and he let his tired, beaten face fall away, one piece at a time, until Marcus could see the man who'd been underneath it the whole time. The man who made his daughter breakfast in the little light over the stove.
The man who'd told a seven-year-old this morning that brave means doing the right thing. Scared. You called my house this morning. Ryan said quietly into the silent room so every board member heard it.
7 a.m. You told me if I brought this folder in today, you'd have me fired for cause and cut off my daughter's health insurance. My daughter has asthma. Marcus, you threatened a 7-year-old's medicine over a glass of scotch.
He let that land in front of 11 people. You want to talk about a disgruntled employee? I want everybody at this table to know that the finance director of this company called a single father at 7 in the morning and threatened to take away a sick kid's inhaler to cover his own theft. That's the man asking you to believe I fabricated something.
The board was staring at Marcus Webb now. All of them. And Ryan watched the thing happen that Victoria had promised. watched Marcus Webb understand fully, and finally that the sad man at the end of the table had never been scared of him at all that the folded, beaten face had been bait, that he'd walked into this room, congratulating himself on a trap he'd sprung on no one. "Oh, you set me up," Webb said.
He was looking at Victoria now, but he pointed at Ryan. "The two of you, you and how long has this been going on? you and a project manager cooking up. Uh, careful, Victoria said, and there was iron in it. Think very carefully about what you're about to accuse me of, Marcus, in a room full of witnesses when your own signature is on two shell corporations, because I promise you, whatever story you're about to tell to save yourself the beach house address is going to make it very hard for anyone to believe.
She closed the folder. You're done. Legal is already on their way up. Diane called them the moment you walked in.
You can leave with your dignity or you can leave with security. Those are the only two choices you have left and they're the last two choices I'm ever going to offer you. Marcus Webb stood up slowly. He looked around the table at 11 faces that would not meet his eyes.
He looked at Victoria cold and immovable at the head of the table. And then he looked last at Ryan Carter at the far end at the exhausted single father he'd threatened at dawn who had somehow turned out to be the one who ended him. "You should have taken the deal," Webb said low just to Ryan. "You had $40 and a sick kid.
You should have folded. Any smart man would have folded." Ryan met his eyes. That's the difference between us, Marcus. He said, "You think $40 in a sick kid makes a man fold?
It's the only thing that ever made me stand up. Marcus Webb had no answer for that. He walked out of the boardroom and two lawyers were waiting for him in the hall and the door swung shut behind them and it was over. For a moment, no one in the room spoke.
Then one of the older board members, a silver-haired woman named Eleanor, who'd sat on the board since before Victoria took it over, cleared her throat and said to Ryan, "Young man, what's your name again?" Ryan Carter, project management. Well, Mr. Carter. Eleanor looked at him over her glasses, and then she looked at Victoria, and something shrewd and knowing crossed her face.
An old woman who'd watched a great many rooms and understood most of what happened in them. It seems this company owes you rather more than a job. She turned to the table. I move we table the merger postmortem.
I think we've all had enough excitement for one morning. The board filed out in a low murmur, and a few of them stopped to shake Ryan's hand on the way, and Ryan shook them and said the right things. And then finally, the room was empty, except for the two of them. Victoria at one end and Ryan at the other, the long table between them.
Neither of them moved for a moment. "You were incredible," Ryan said quietly. "So were you." Victoria came down the length of the table toward him slowly. You kept your face still right up until the end.
I've never seen anyone do that to Marcus Webb. I've watched grown men fall apart trying to lie to that man. And you sat there and let him think he'd beaten you. And then you She stopped a few feet from him.
He threatened Emma. Yeah. At 7 in the morning over scotch. Her jaw was tight.
I want you to know that's over now. Not just his job. I'm going to make sure that man never you and Emma are never going to have to think about him again. Whatever it takes.
That's not the CEO talking. She looked up at him. That's Friday night. That's the person from Friday night talking.