Garrett removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Your name is on both sides of the relationship," he said. "Sterling Vane is the client and Hale Strategy Group is the vendor. At some point somebody is going to ask what services were actually delivered."
Preston looked up. "Then you'll show them the statements of work you approved." Garrett felt the threat inside the answer. He had approved documents because Preston told him to and had kept the emails because, although he lacked the courage to object properly, he had never completely trusted the man demanding his cooperation.
"The statements are general," Garrett said. "They don't identify the teams that supposedly worked on the projects." Preston closed his laptop. "I am the operations executive. Your job is to make sure approved operating expenses get paid. Don't confuse anxiety with diligence."
Garrett left with the folder still in his hand. He passed a row of empty offices and stopped outside the finance records room, where an automated approval system archived every change made to a payment request. He had long ago begun copying the authorization emails to a secure compliance archive that senior finance staff could access. It was a small act of self-protection, not yet the moral decision he would later need to make, but it meant that when somebody finally asked the right questions, the original instructions would still exist.
That evening, Sienna's video passed two hundred thousand views. Many comments laughed at the woman in the lobby, while others pointed out that the employees seemed to be humiliating somebody who had done nothing more than ask for her appointment. A former Sterling Vane contractor wrote that she had been sent to the loading entrance on her first day. Another person asked why the company advertised respect for clients if its executives could not manage an ordinary greeting.
Preston saw the comments and chose to focus on the laughter. Sienna sent him a screenshot of the view count with three celebratory symbols beside it. He forwarded it to two directors who frequently supported him and wrote that Sterling Vane was finally showing a little personality. By the time he finished, he had convinced himself the episode had increased his popularity with employees rather than damaged the company's reputation.
Imani watched the same video from a quiet room at Brooks Meridian. Julian sat across from her with a folder of acquisition documents open, but she was not studying his papers. She was watching Maya attempt to explain that the guest had an appointment while Preston waved her back toward the desk. Imani paused the recording at the exact moment the younger woman stepped forward, alone, without support from anyone around her.
"Find out whether Maya still works there," Imani said. Julian looked down at a message already waiting on his phone. "She was dismissed this afternoon," he answered. "Her access was revoked at three fourteen. The personnel system lists the reason as disloyalty and insubordination."
Imani stared at the frozen image. The word disloyalty appeared repeatedly in the employment complaints she had read during due diligence, usually attached to workers who had disagreed with someone above them. She had wondered how an entire company came to define a polite question as betrayal. Now she had watched the answer in less than a minute of footage.