By the meeting's end, the board voted to suspend Vivien's direct authority over the aviation division while a formal investigation proceeded. Dorian was escorted from the building that same night and asked to surrender all company equipment before leaving the property. Thaddius personally authorized full payment to Hail Arrow Restoration, releasing the funds before the meeting had even fully adjourned. Rowan, however, still had not signed the aircraft's completion documents, explaining that the payment satisfied only part of Blackthorne's obligation. The Gulfstream still needed to pass one final complete inspection before it could be legally certified to fly again.
The following morning, Rowan returned to the hangar accompanied by his technical crew and an independent inspector brought in specifically to observe the process. He had no interest in dragging the inspection out longer than necessary simply to humiliate Vivien further. So he moved through each required step exactly as the protocol demanded, reviewing every maintenance log in sequence, crosschecking component serial numbers against the original repair records, testing cabin pressurization under controlled conditions, verifying flight control response, running the engines through a full diagnostic sequence, confirming vibration data against expected tolerances, and re-examining the section where the hidden crack had once threatened the entire airframe. Vivien stood outside the hangar and watched the man she had once dismissed as a desperate mechanic coordinate dozens of specialists with quiet practiced authority. No one asked for her opinion at any point during the process.
Mara told Vivien directly without softening the message that the flight crew had never been trying to betray their employer. They had been protecting the passengers, the company, and whether she wanted to admit it or not, Vivien herself. It slowly became clear to Vivien that her entire staff had not sided with Rowan because he held more power than she did. They had sided with him because, when it truly mattered, he had proven himself far more trustworthy. She approached Rowan privately and offered a quiet apology, hoping to resolve things without further public discomfort.
Rowan told her that a private apology could not undo a humiliation that had been delivered publicly in front of her own board and staff. Vivien was ultimately required to walk into the hangar, standing before the assembled technical crew and flight staff, and acknowledge openly that Hail Arrow Restoration had fulfilled every obligation exactly as promised. She confirmed that the delay had never been Rowan's fault, that her decision to withhold payment had been wrong from the start, and that the flight crew had acted correctly by refusing to fly an aircraft that had not been properly cleared. The admission did not transform her into a different person overnight, but it marked the first time in the entire ordeal that she had been forced to genuinely answer for her own choices rather than deflecting blame onto someone with less power than herself. Later that same day, Avery called her father after reading Blackthorne's official public statement, acknowledging the dispute and its resolution.