Maria leaned down.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
Maria waited.
Diana looked toward the window.
“No.”
“That’s allowed.”
Diana nodded.
“Thank you.”
James brought water.
His face was still flushed.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“That it went on that long.”
Diana looked at him.
“You intervened.”
“I should’ve been firmer sooner.”
“Maybe.”
James lowered his eyes.
Diana continued.
“We’ll review it later.”
He looked worried.
“I’m not firing you.”
That startled a laugh out of him.
“I wasn’t asking.”
“You were thinking.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Diana smiled faintly.
“So was I.”
The door closed.
The aircraft pushed back twenty-three minutes late.
As Seattle disappeared beneath the wing, Diana opened her laptop.
She did not work on the merger.
Instead she created a document.
INCIDENT NOTES — FLIGHT 447.
She began at the gate.
Patricia’s threat to the agent.
The comments in the jet bridge.
James’s first intervention.
Maria’s escalation.
Rodriguez’s final warning.
The moment crew became uncertain because the target was the CEO operating incognito.
That mattered.
Diana did not want the report to become a heroic story about employees defending their boss.
The real question was whether they would have defended an unknown Black passenger with equal speed.
She wrote that sentence down.
Would response have been identical if passenger identity remained unknown?
Then she stared at it for a long time.
Marcus Lee called as they reached cruising altitude.
“You’re trending.”
Diana closed her eyes.
“Already?”
“Unfortunately.”
“How bad?”
“Depends what you mean.”
“Marcus.”
“Clips are moving fast.”
“Patricia?”
“Her stream was saved by viewers.”
Diana looked out the window.
“What is Air Support saying?”
“Nothing publicly.”
“Privately?”
“Their CEO has called me four times.”
“Don’t negotiate anything while I’m in the air.”
“We have a contract renewal meeting tomorrow.”
“Cancel it.”
“Cancel the renewal?”
“Cancel the meeting.”
Marcus paused.
“Difference noted.”
“Preserve the current contract. Preserve every complaint involving Air Support personnel from the last eighteen months.”
“Already started.”
“Do not threaten them.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Do not tell them Patricia cost them the contract.”
“We haven’t decided that.”
“Exactly.”
Marcus laughed softly.
“You know most CEOs would be furious.”
“I am furious.”
“You hide it well.”
“No. I organize it.”
That was something her father used to say.
Anger was energy.
Use it before it used you.
Diana opened the merger materials.