Sloan asked him directly what it would take for him to help her reach that meeting in time. And Caleb laid out three conditions without hesitation. Full access to every piece of merger data, an immediate suspension of Graham the moment they landed, and a public disclosure to the board about who truly owned the aircraft she had spent years treating as her own. She struggled with that final condition, knowing it would strip away a piece of the family's carefully built image. And Caleb told her that a reputation built on an asset that was never truly hers was not a reputation at all, only a costume.
She agreed to the first two conditions immediately, still hesitating on the third, and Caleb did not push her further, telling her that whatever she chose to do in that boardroom would reveal whether she was any different from her father. Graham made one last attempt to convince her that Caleb was maneuvering to seize control of the company outright. And Caleb calmly revealed he held no equity in Vanderlin Global whatsoever, though his trust did hold roughly $480 million in secured bonds tied to the company's obligations. If the fraudulent merger went through as planned, the entire company risked default. And Sloan finally understood exactly why Caleb had shown up that morning.
Not to take over her company, but to stop its assets from being quietly stripped away before the creditors ever noticed. Her father called once more as the aircraft began its descent, ordering her to have the pilots divert the flight regardless of what Caleb wanted. And for the first time in her life, Sloan told him plainly that he no longer had the authority to give commands aboard this particular aircraft. Prescott snapped back that the plane carried the family name, and Sloan looked across the cabin at Caleb before answering that it only carried their logo, nothing more. Lena's voice came through the cabin speaker moments later, informing them that the board had already begun its vote without Sloan present, and the descent toward New York suddenly felt like a race against a clock that had been set to run out before she ever landed.
The aircraft touched down at Tedarboro and Prescott had arranged a private car waiting for Graham alone, leaving Sloan to realize just how thoroughly the plan to remove her had already been set into motion. Caleb offered the use of a vehicle belonging to Ror Aeronautics Trust instead. And when Sloan instinctively moved toward the back seat out of old habit, he told her there was no time left for formality of any kind. The two of them reviewed the documents together during the drive into Manhattan, working through everything Lena had compiled, the falsified asset records, the hidden Bermuda routing, the forged electronic authorization, and the paper trail connecting the transferred assets back to Graham's family holdings. Sloan faced a choice she had never had to make before.