Rowan sent the board a complete file directly, including the emails in which Dorian asked him to omit evidence of prior tampering from the official repair log. The file also contained records of Vivien's numerous change requests, documentation of the dangerous crack discovered mid project, proof that Rowan had absorbed additional costs himself to meet proper safety standards, an audio recording of the meeting where Vivien formally refused payment, and the written record of her veiled threat involving Avery's future career prospects. The board quickly understood that Vivien was not merely locked in a dispute with a single vendor. She had placed the company's aircraft insurance standing and public reputation at serious risk through her own conduct. Time pressure compounded the crisis further since Vivien was scheduled to fly to New York the following morning to finalize an important business deal that had taken months to arrange.
No comparable aircraft could be secured on short notice since every suitable jet in the region had already been booked for a major industry conference happening the same week. Vivien instructed Mara to prepare a smaller aircraft from the fleet instead, one that happened to be in the middle of mandatory scheduled maintenance. Mara refused outright, unwilling to bypass a required safety check simply to accommodate her employer's travel schedule. When Vivien pushed harder, insisting the maintenance could wait until after the trip, Mara removed her employee badge and set it on the table, stating she was prepared to resign rather than gamble with anyone's safety to preserve a chief executive's calendar. Thaddius Kingsley called an emergency board meeting directly inside the hangar that same evening, insisting that Rowan attend in person as well.
Vivien assumed Rowan had been summoned to beg for a partial settlement, and she walked into the meeting still carrying the same dismissive posture she had shown him from their very first encounter. Once the doors closed, however, Thaddius invited Rowan to sit directly across from the chief executive and placed the entire stack of evidence squarely on the table between them. The boardroom fell quiet the moment Thaddius closed the door behind him. The kind of silence that made every small sound, a shifting chair, a cleared throat, feel unusually loud. Several board members who had never met Rowan in person studied him carefully, trying to reconcile the calm, plainly dressed man in front of them with the elaborate villain Vivien had described in her earlier phone calls.
Rowan did not attempt to fill the silence or perform any version of righteous anger for the room. He simply set his folder on the table, squared its edges once out of habit, and waited for someone else to speak first. Vivien tried initially to steer the conversation her own direction, accusing Rowan of applying unlawful pressure and deliberately disrupting normal business operations. Rowan did not respond with emotion or accusation of his own. Instead, he walked the room through a precise timeline.