Chapter 7: The Board Meets Anyway
I checked myself out of the hospital at noon.
My medical advisor signed the release under protest, listing four conditions I agreed to in writing and intended to follow precisely none of.
I dressed in the clothes Sal had brought — dark suit, no tie — and walked out of the VIP wing under my own power for the first time in six days.
The board meeting was scheduled for two o'clock.
I arrived at one fifty-five.
The room went quiet when I walked in.
Not the polite quiet of a meeting coming to order.
The other kind — the kind that happens when something appears that was not supposed to be there.
Seven board members.
Marco at the far end, who met my eyes and gave one small nod.
Three faces that had pledged allegiance to the new regime while standing outside my hospital room window.
One political figure who had the particular stillness of a man calculating his exit.
And Anthony, who was seated at the head of the table in my chair, with a leather portfolio open in front of him and a glass of water he had not touched.
He looked at me the way a man looks at something he has decided cannot be real.
"Dominic." His voice was controlled.
"You should be in the hospital."
"I was." I walked to the head of the table.
I didn't ask him to move.
I stopped beside the chair and waited.
Anthony stood.
He picked up his portfolio.
He moved two seats down and sat again, and the men on either side of him shifted almost imperceptibly away.
I sat in my chair.
"The meeting is canceled," I said.
"The bylaws require—" one of the board members began.
"The bylaws apply in the event of incapacitation.
I am not incapacitated." I set a single folder on the table.
"What I am is aware that four people in this room have spent the past week making arrangements based on the assumption that I would not be returning." I opened the folder.
"I'd like to address that directly."
The political figure — Senator Hale's former aide, a man named Pritchard whom I had personally funded through two election cycles — cleared his throat.
"Dominic, I think there may have been some miscommunication about—"
"You pledged support to Anthony's restructuring proposal on Monday afternoon, standing in the corridor outside my hospital room." I looked at him steadily.
"You said, and I'm quoting from memory, that you had been waiting for new leadership for two years." I paused.
"Was that a miscommunication, Garrett?"
Pritchard said nothing.
His hands were flat on the table.
I looked around the room.
"I'm not going to litigate this today.
What I am going to do is give each of you the opportunity to decide, in the next twenty-four hours, whether your future is with this company or with the people who assumed I was already g0ne." I closed the folder.
"Choose carefully."
I stood.
Marco stood with me.
Anthony remained seated.
His portfolio was closed.
He had not spoken since I sat down.
At the door, I turned back.
"Anthony."
He looked up.
"Your arrangement with Veronica is known.
Carver's records are with the district attorney's office as of this morning." I watched his face.
"If you have an attorney you trust, I'd suggest calling them today."
Anthony's mouth opened.
Closed.
He looked, for the first time in the twenty years I had known him, like a man who had run out of moves.
"You were going to let me d*e," I said.
Not loudly.
Not with anger.
Just the fact of it, placed between us in the quiet room.
He didn't deny it.
I walked out.
Marco fell into step beside me in the corridor.
We didn't speak until we reached the elevator.
"The DA's office," Marco said quietly.
"How much did you give them?"
"Everything," I said.
"Sal delivered this morning.
The recording, the drive, your records, the vehicle inspection photographs." The elevator arrived.
We stepped in.
"It's out of my hands now."
Marco was quiet for a moment.
"And Veronica?"
The doors closed.
May you like
"She made her call," I said.
"What happens next isn't up to me."
