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“Efficiency is a priority, but we won’t sacrifice thoroughness for speed. As our lead consultant has rightly pointed out, a legacy is built over decades, but it can be fortified in three weeks if you have the courage to look at the cracks.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see her smile.
Isabella
He’s brilliant.
Once he finds his footing, Sebastian King commands that interview like a man who was born to sit under hot lights and make people believe him. He weaves my talking points through his own until I can’t tell where mine end. By the time the red light goes dark, the voices in my earpiece have gone from doubtful to impressed.
I’m proud of him. I’m proud of me. I’m really fucking good at my job.
“That was perfect,” I tell him when he finally pulls off his mic. “You stayed on script.”
“I improved the script.” He’s already walking. I have to hurry to keep up. “Don’t get used to it. I still think the auditors are overkill.”
“Of course you do.”
“I translated your consultant-speak into something that actually sounds like King policy.”
“You started that interview looking like a deer in headlights.”
“I was processing.” He jabs the elevator button. “I don’t appreciate being told what to do in my own building. Or finding a half-dressed woman in a supply closet.”
“And I don’t appreciate holding the hand of a grown man who was born in a billion-dollar cradle.” The doors open, and we step in, two storm clouds in gray reflected in the mirrored walls. “You have a world-class plan on your desk, and you treat every page of it like a personal insult.”
“It is an insult. You want strangers judging a business they didn’t build.”
“I’m trying to save fifty years of history from a federal investigation. You can’t glare a scandal away, Sebastian.”
The doors open on the executive floor. Assistants duck their heads. We march past them, arguing in low, furious voices, and reach for his door handle at the same time. Our hands collide, warm and startling. The momentum carries us both inside.
“You’re so afraid of looking weak that you’d let the whole ship—”
I stop.
A man is standing at the window, silhouetted against the skyline. When he turns, the temperature in the room drops ten degrees.
Julian King looks like a weathered, more lethal copy of his son. He’s in his seventies, shorter than Sebastian, and somehow he fills the room anyway.
Sebastian changes in a heartbeat. The fire in his eyes goes out. He goes still. Not the stillness of a predator, but the stillness of a man bracing for impact.
“Dad,” he says flatly.
“I watched the broadcast.” Julian doesn’t look at me. “You were soft. Everyone saw it.”
“I followed the strategy—”
“You fumbled the strategy. You invited the world to come poke around in our private business. A King doesn’t ask for an independent review. A King tells the public the truth, and the public believes it, because we own the truth.”
“You’re the one who hired her firm,” Sebastian says tightly.
“I hired a shield, not a scalpel.” Julian’s eyes finally flick to me, black and cold as a shark’s. “I’ve read your résumé, Ms. Medina. It’s impressive. But if I hear the word independent one more time, your contract will be terminated before the sun sets.”
He walks to the door, and he doesn’t look back.
“Fix this, Sebastian. Or I’ll find a COO who doesn’t need a babysitter.”
The door clicks shut.
