The only thing standing between Ethan Whitmore and total ruin was the signature of a man he'd called too poor to breathe his air. "Mr. Reed," Ethan said, and now the syrup was in his voice. Now he was the one performing, and Travis could see every gear turning behind his eyes. "Mr. Reed, I am... I am so deeply sorry."
"I was out of line, completely out of line. I'd had a few drinks. It was the heat. I... That's not who I am."
"That's not the man I am. Anyone here will tell you." "Anyone here will tell me you've been buying their silence with dinner invitations for years," Travis said. "Don't do that."
"Don't stand there and tell me who you really are. I watched who you really are for the last 10 minutes. You showed me for free." "Please." The word came out of Ethan cracked.
"Mr. Reed, please. I have employees. Sixty-two people work for me. If this deal doesn't close, they lose their jobs, their families."
For just a moment, something in Travis's face shifted. Because that was the only thing Ethan could have said that landed. Sixty-two families. Travis had started with $11,000 and a motorcycle, and he had never once in 40 years forgotten what it felt like to be a man worried about a paycheck.
Ethan saw it. Ethan saw the crack and lunged for it like a drowning man. "Yes," Ethan pressed. "Yes, think about them."
"This isn't about me. You don't have to save me, but those people did nothing wrong. They have kids in school. They have mortgages."
"They do," Travis agreed quietly. "And that's the only reason I'm not walking away from this right now and letting you drown in the debt you built." He looked at Ethan with something cold and clear. "But don't you dare hide behind those 62 people."
"Don't you dare use them as a shield five minutes after you used me as a punchline. Because I promise you, son, those 62 people would be embarrassed to watch you do it." Ethan's mouth closed. "Here's what's true," Travis said.
He said it to the whole courtyard now, not just to Ethan. "I was going to save this company. The deal was good. The people are worth saving."
"The buildings are worth holding through the downturn. My people did the work, and the numbers made sense. I came down here personally to sign it because I do that for deals that matter to me." He paused.
"And then I parked my bike, and a man I'd never met decided that the cheapest, easiest thing he could do with his afternoon was humiliate a stranger he thought couldn't fight back." He let the folder fall closed. "So now I've got a problem," Travis said.