"I know."
Wren studied her. "Why were you so mean?"
Sloan looked toward Caleb, but he offered no rescue.
"Because I thought being important meant never letting anyone challenge me," she said. "And because I judged your father before I knew him."
Wren frowned. "You still shouldn't be mean to people you don't know."
"You're right."
"Are you going to work here again?"
"I don't know."
Wren tucked the sketchbook under her arm. "Dad says people need consequences."
"He's right."
"He also says consequences are supposed to teach you something."
Caleb looked at his daughter. That sentence was one of his, spoken after she broke a neighbor's window with a baseball. Hearing it now in this atrium gave it new weight.
Sloan's eyes glistened, though her voice remained steady. "I am trying to learn."
Wren nodded once. "Then you should keep trying."
She walked toward the elevators, leaving the two adults behind.
Sloan watched her go. "She sounds like you."
"She sounds like her mother."
"Was her mother as forgiving?"
Caleb looked at the faded jacket Wren had repaired. "Lena believed forgiveness without truth was only permission. She also believed truth without mercy could become another kind of pride."
Sloan absorbed that in silence.
For the first time, Caleb wondered not whether she deserved another chance, but what shape a responsible chance might take.
The investigation concluded after 11 weeks. Blaine Cutter was terminated for cause and referred to federal authorities for financial misconduct and deliberate suppression of safety information.
Tessa Crow was dismissed after the review documented years of retaliation, falsified evaluations, and discriminatory hiring practices. Several managers left voluntarily before their interviews were complete. Others remained under corrective agreements that required training, monitored decisions, and direct accountability to employees they had once ignored.
The board prepared a public report naming failures at every level, including Caleb's lack of oversight and Sloan's leadership. Attorneys warned that such transparency could increase legal exposure.
Caleb answered that legal safety purchased through dishonesty had brought the company to the edge of collapse.
The report was released without euphemism.
On the same morning, Sloan received a request to meet Caleb in the small conference room on the 22nd floor. She arrived early and sat in the chair where she had once defended herself.
Caleb entered carrying no files. He placed two cups of coffee on the table and sat across from her.