The request was reviewed, and the old record was corrected after the airline determined it lacked a supporting basis. Aaron called Ethan to say that his brother had received a written explanation and apology. The letter could not restore the vacations he had missed or erase his anxiety, but it gave him something official to place against the old story. He had been treated wrongly, and a company had finally said so without requiring him to become famous.
Ethan considered that news more meaningful than most of the congratulations he received. The first week after the incident, people had called him brave for possessing leverage he had spent two decades building. They celebrated the suspension of a financial commitment and the removal of a powerful executive. Those events mattered, but Ethan had grown wary of stories that defined justice only by the humiliation of someone who had once been powerful.
He wanted a measure that did not require a villain to fall in public. He wanted a flight attendant to be able to tell a vice president no and keep her job. He wanted a passenger with a valid ticket to remain in the seat without needing to reveal a title. He wanted a police officer to ask why he had been summoned before assuming the person surrounded by uniforms was the problem.
The next formal meeting between Ethan and William took place after Northstar's second quarterly compliance report. They sat in a smaller conference room than the one that had held the emergency board meeting, with Maya, James, Susan, and the independent monitor joining for part of the discussion. The company had met enough financing conditions for further approved funding to proceed, though several milestones remained open and the final portions of the commitment still depended on performance.
William placed the report between them. "We haven't fixed everything," he said before Ethan could ask.
"Good," Ethan replied.
William looked surprised. "Good?"
"It's good that you're no longer pretending. That's the first requirement for fixing anything difficult."
Susan reviewed the outstanding items: delays in the appeals software, inconsistent documentation at two regional stations, the need for more accessible complaint procedures, and continuing monitoring of premium-cabin exceptions. Maya reviewed cash flow and operating results. James confirmed that the investment terms would preserve the independence of the compliance process rather than leaving it vulnerable to future changes in management.
The meeting was not inspiring in the way a television segment could be inspiring. It involved line items, software deadlines, and disagreements over the cost of external reviews. Ethan preferred it that way. Real accountability rarely arrived with music and applause. More often it looked like someone asking whether the work assigned last Tuesday had been completed by this Tuesday.
Afterward, William walked Ethan toward the elevator. "I still think about Flight 1876," he said. "How close I came to losing the financing, and how much worse the decision could have become."
Ethan stopped. "Do you think about the passengers who had the same experience before me?"
William nodded. "More now than I used to."
"Then keep thinking about them when there's no investor in the room," Ethan said.