"I think so. It won't look exactly the same."
"That's okay. It just has to land."
Daniel smiled. "That's a good way to look at it."
They worked together with glue, tape, and a spare popsicle stick until the little model stood on its own again. Daniel left the repair visible rather than trying to hide it under paint. Noah said it looked stronger that way. Daniel wondered how many people in the adult world might feel less ashamed if they could accept a repair that was honest about what had broken.
The next morning Marcus Reed asked to speak with Frances and the outside attorneys. He had spent the weekend reviewing decisions he once considered routine. He brought an organized file of revised forecasts, email approvals, and notes of meetings where he had accepted legal's explanations without independent verification. He also brought a signed statement acknowledging his failures.
"I did not design the shell-vendor arrangements," he said. "I did sign financial certifications that relied on summaries I didn't test. I approved cost reductions based on numbers I should have challenged. I am not asking you to excuse that because I was busy or because I trusted Adrian."
Frances read the statement in silence. "What changed?"
Marcus thought of the analyst he had dismissed as a difficult employee, the warehouse workers whose overtime hours had become a line in his forecast, and the chief executive who had finally asked him for proof instead of confidence.
"I kept saying I knew some of it," he said. "The truth is, I knew enough to ask more questions. I chose not to."
His cooperation gave the investigators a clearer picture of how questionable assumptions moved through the company, but it did not absolve him. The independent committee began a separate assessment of his conduct. Marcus was removed from the chief financial officer position and offered a path to assist the investigation under appropriate legal arrangements, with no promise of a future role. He accepted the decision without asking Victoria to intervene.
When Victoria told Daniel, he did not celebrate. "I hope he cooperates fully," he said.
"He is."
"Good. The goal was never to collect names of people who deserved to fall. It was to find out what went wrong and stop it."
Victoria was quiet for a moment. "You keep saying that."
"Because it's easy to forget once the story becomes personal."
She looked at the photograph of the old engineering team on her office wall. "It's already personal."
"I know," Daniel said. "That's why the rules have to be stronger than either of us."
The formal shareholder meeting was announced for the following month. Northstar and several other investors proposed new independent directors, stronger audit powers, and a committee to review executive incentives. The existing board could not simply be replaced because a wealthy man was angry. Votes had to be solicited, disclosures reviewed, and competing proposals considered. Some institutional investors supported the reforms. Others worried that Northstar was gaining too much influence. The debate was public, messy, and far less dramatic than the effortless coup people imagined when they heard the phrase secret billionaire.