“I’m aware.”
“You don’t destroy nine months of work because somebody didn’t shake your hand.”
She looked directly at him.
“That isn’t why I’m leaving.”
The chief executive laughed.
“What else could it possibly be?”
She did not answer.
That was what unsettled the chief financial officer.
Because he knew there was something else.
Something hidden behind the numbers.
Something the Black investor did not yet know.
And something the chief executive was desperate to keep buried long enough to get signatures on paper.
For nearly three months, the chief financial officer had convinced himself that the undisclosed obligations would eventually be corrected.
That the acquisition would close.
That new capital would arrive.
That a larger company with deeper resources would absorb the problem.
That temporary concealment was different from permanent fraud.
That sophisticated investors would discover the details later anyway.
That everyone involved understood aggressive deal-making.
He had found a hundred words to avoid saying the simplest one.
Wrong.
Now the billion dollars was gone.
And with it, the excuse that time would somehow fix what he had helped hide.
The chief executive turned toward him.
“Call the banks.”
The chief financial officer did not move.
“I said call them.”
Still nothing.
The room noticed.
The chief executive’s eyes narrowed.
“What’s wrong with you?”
The financial officer looked toward the Black investor.
Then at the floor where several pages from her portfolio still lay scattered.
Something inside him finally broke.
Not courage exactly.
Courage would have happened earlier.
This was exhaustion.
He said quietly:
“She should leave.”
The chief executive stared.
“What?”
“She should leave.”
“You’re taking her side?”
“No.”
The financial officer swallowed.
“I’m saying this meeting is over.”
The chief executive stepped toward him.
“You work for me.”
The financial officer looked up.
“No.”
Silence.
The board went still.
He continued.
“I work for the company.”
The chief executive’s face changed.
It was the expression of a man hearing a familiar sentence for the first time.
The Black investor noticed.
She had already reached the boardroom door.
The chief executive turned toward her again.
“Don’t walk away from this.”
She looked over one shoulder.