Chapter 10 - The Meeting Nobody Wanted
At four that afternoon, Blackwood Restoration's sixty-three employees filled the warehouse floor.
Some stood beside worktables.
Some sat on sample crates.
A few had brought coffee from the shop next door and weren't drinking it.
Nate stood near the back even though Adrian had fired him.
Mara wasn't there.
She had a hospital appointment with her husband.
I was glad.
Not everyone needed to attend the collapse just because they'd helped build the building.
Celeste came with me.
Elise arrived ten minutes later and stood beside Martin near the loading door.
People noticed.
Nobody knew who she was.
Adrian walked to the front without a microphone.
He looked older than he had twenty-four hours earlier.
"I'm not going to waste your time," he said.
That, at least, was new.
He told them the Miller project had collapsed.
He told them cash was short.
He told them the company had planned to sell Alder House to stabilize operations.
Then he stopped.
His eyes found Elise.
"The title to that property is disputed."
Elise gave him a look but didn't interrupt.
He told them the bank had pulled the bridge loan.
He did not say why.
A foreman named Luis called out, "Are we getting paid Friday?"
Adrian's face tightened.
"I don't know."
The room shifted.
Someone swore softly.
Another employee sat down.
A woman from design started crying without making a sound.
This was what Adrian had been trying to outrun.
Not prison.
Not scandal.
This.
People looking at him and realizing his confidence could not make money appear.
"I am working on alternatives," he said.
Nate stepped forward.
"Don't."
Adrian looked at him.
"You're no longer employed here."
"Correct. Which makes this easier."
Nate faced the room.
"There are receivables due next month. There is equipment. There are active contracts that could be sold or assigned. There are ways to wind down without pretending we can make payroll forever."
Adrian's face flushed.
"You don't know the full picture."
"I know enough."
One of the carpenters said, "So you're saying close?"
Nate hesitated.
"I'm saying maybe shrinking isn't the same as dying."
I looked at Adrian.
The sentence hit him.
Because it was exactly the thing I'd been telling him for a year.
He had heard it from me as criticism.
From Nate, it sounded like arithmetic.
Adrian turned to the employees.
"Give me until tomorrow."
Luis shook his head.
"For what?"
"To save the company."
"With whose house?" Elise asked.
Every head turned.
Adrian closed his eyes.
Then he said, "Elise is my former wife."
A murmur ran through the room.
He kept going.
"She is alive."
That part caused actual silence.
I almost admired the brutal simplicity.
He looked at me.
"I told Evelyn she was dead. That was a lie."
Someone near the back whispered, "Jesus."
Adrian continued.
"I also allowed a guaranty to be submitted using Evelyn's signature without her direct authorization."
Nate said, "I signed it."
Adrian looked at him.
"At my direction."
Nate nodded.
No one looked victorious.
That mattered.
This wasn't a public revenge scene.
It was sixty-three people learning the man in charge had been improvising their futures.
Celeste stepped forward.
"And I'm his wife."
The whispering started again.
Adrian looked at her.
"You didn't have to-"
"Yes, I did."
She faced the room.
"I funded company expenses through my consulting account. I stopped doing that today."
A younger employee snapped, "So that's it? You just shut us off?"
Celeste's face tightened.
"It was my personal money."
"We have rent."
"So do I."
The employee laughed bitterly.
"Must be rough in your high-rise."
I saw Celeste's shoulders rise.
Then fall.
She didn't respond.
Pain doesn't make people fair.
Adrian stepped in.
"Don't attack her. This is on me."
It was the first completely adult thing I'd heard him say.
Then his phone rang.
He looked at the screen.
His face emptied.
"What?" I asked.
He answered.
Listened.
Said nothing for nearly thirty seconds.
Then he lowered the phone.
"The buyer terminated the Alder House contract."
Elise let out a breath.
Adrian looked around the warehouse.
"We're insolvent."
No one moved.
And the thing he'd spent months trying to prevent happened anyway.
May you like
The company became smaller than his pride.
