“You used us in due diligence?”
Coleman said, “Not now, Robert.”
Evans stepped closer.
“What exactly have you people done?”
Daniel studied him.
That phrasing mattered too.
Not what happened.
What have you people done.
Evans realized it.
His face tightened.
Thomas Reed spoke through phone.
“Daniel, Alana.”
“I am asking you personally not to leave.”
Daniel looked toward the jet.
Then at his wife.
Alana shook her head.
Daniel said, “We’re not boarding that aircraft.”
“I understand.”
Thomas paused.
“I’m coming to Houston.”
Daniel said, “Don't come for us.”
Another pause.
“Come for your company.”
Then he ended the call.
No one moved.
Somewhere behind them, a baggage tug beeped while reversing.
Ordinary airport life continued.
The jet still waited.
Passengers still recorded.
But everyone within twenty feet understood that something irreversible had happened.
Jensen looked at Daniel.
“What happens now?”
Daniel’s answer was simple.
“I don't know.”
That frightened him more than anger would have.
Alana added, “And neither do you.”
Three hours earlier, the day had begun beautifully.
That was what Alana would remember later.
Not the confrontation first.
The breakfast.
Daniel standing barefoot in their Houston penthouse kitchen, pretending he knew how to make French toast.
He did not.
The smoke alarm had opinions.
Alana walked in wearing one of his shirts.
She stopped.
“Are you cooking?”
Daniel looked toward the pan.
“Technically.”
“Should I call emergency services?”
“That feels premature.”
She crossed the kitchen and looked into the skillet.
“Daniel.”
“Yes?”
“That is black.”
“Caramelized.”
“It has structural integrity.”
“NASA builds heat shields darker than this.”
Alana laughed.
“Do not blame aerospace engineering for your breakfast.”
He pulled her toward him.
She smiled.
“You smell like smoke.”
“You married me anyway.”
“Under incomplete information.”
He kissed her forehead.
Sixteen years.
Still that easy.
Not perfect.
Never easy in the cheap sense.
They had built Apex together from a twelve-person engineering shop in a rented building outside Huntsville.
Daniel understood operations.
Alana understood systems.
Daniel could walk into a failing organization and identify the human bottleneck before the CFO finished introductions.
Alana could examine two thousand pages of technical architecture and find three assumptions everyone else had accepted because nobody wanted to challenge the chief engineer.
They fought.
Often.
Professionally.
Privately.
Then they went home together.
Their first office had leaked.
Their first major customer nearly bankrupted them by paying eighty-seven days late.
Their first satellite component failed a vibration test forty-eight hours before delivery.
They rebuilt it.
Passed.
Grew.
Apex became one of the largest Black-founded aerospace corporations in the United States.
That label mattered to the media more than it mattered inside the company.
Daniel was proud.
Alana was too.
But neither wanted diversity headlines to become an explanation for engineering excellence.
Apex did not win contracts because Daniel and Alana were Black.
Apex won because equipment worked.
Because data was honest.
Because when something failed, nobody was rewarded for hiding it.
Their company mantra appeared inside every engineering building:
Bad news does not improve with age.