They're going to put your daughter's name in a deposition to see if it makes you flinch. Let them put her name in it. Ethan. They can say whatever they want about me, Ethan said. I stopped caring what people said about me in a hospital hallway 3 years ago.
There's not a lawyer alive who can hurt me worse than a Tuesday in March. There was a silence on the line. All right, Maya said, come back tonight. At 2: 30, Victoria Sterling finally read the folder. Preston had gotten it not from Ray, but the way things actually happen in corporations, which is to say, a lawyer called a lawyer and an agreement was signed and a scanned copy was produced under a preservation letter with Ray standing right there watching it happen page by page.
Victoria read it alone in her office with the door shut. She read for 18 minutes. At 2: 48, she came out and said to her assistant, get me Marcus Hale. Marcus Hale was the Marion County site director, the man whose name was on the email. He came up at 3: 20.
Marcus, sit down. Victoria, before you start, I want to say I think this is completely blown out of proportion. Sit. He sat. She slid one page across the desk, the consolidated summary memo, four findings.
Did you prepare this? My team did. Did you prepare it? Marcus's throat moved. I approved it.
On the 11th of April, you sent this to Claire Donovan for certification. That's the standard process, Marcus. Victoria's voice was very calm and very quiet and it was according to the man himself. Later, the single most frightened thing he had ever heard in his life. Did you instruct anyone to reduce the finding count?
I instructed the team to present the findings in a usable format. That's not an answer. Victoria, we had a financing close on the 22nd. If nine criticals go into the state package, Northbridge pulls the tranche and the whole thing slips two quarters. You said, and I'm quoting you from the March 4th call, you said, quote, "I don't want anything in the package that gives Northbridge a reason to blink. " Victoria went absolutely still.
I said that about the marketing deck. You said it about the package. I said it about the deck, Marcus. Well, Marcus Hale said, and his hands were shaking on his knees. That's not how I heard it.
And that was the moment Victoria Sterling understood for the first time all day that she was not managing a scandal. She was standing inside one. At 3: 41, she picked up her phone and called Gerald Vance and said four words she had never said in 11 years. Gerald, I need help. At 4: 15, Claire Donovan walked into Victoria's office without knocking.
I want to talk to you before I do something. Claire, I'm in the middle of I know what you're in the middle of. I'm the one who found it. Victoria looked up. Say that again.
The certification I signed in April was based on a doctored summary. The original vendor report has 14 findings and nine criticals. Somebody stripped the metadata off the memo before it came to me. Claire stayed standing. Victoria, I've got a name on my signature line and I'm going to fix it.
I'm telling you as a courtesy, not as a request. Fix it how? Fix it. I'm going to file a corrective certification with the state, and I'm going to do it tomorrow morning at 9: 00, and I'm going to inform the audit committee tonight. You'll destroy the financing.
The financing is already gone. You'll destroy the company. No, Claire said. You did that at 9: 47 this morning when you left. Victoria stood up so fast her chair rolled back into the window.
Don't you dare. I watched it 14 times. Claire's voice never rose. Do you know what I kept looking at? Not you.
The balcony. 40 of our people looking down and not one of them laughed with you. Not one, Victoria. That's the part you should be afraid of. Claire, I've worked for you for 9 years and I have defended you in rooms where it cost me.
You are the smartest person I've ever met. Claire picked up her folder. And this morning a man came to our door with the truth in his hands and you had him put in handcuffs because his jacket was old. She walked to the door. Claire, wait.
Claire stopped. Victoria stood there in her own office and for a full 5 seconds could not produce a sentence. Finally, she said, "What was his name? " Claire turned around slowly. You still don't know his name. Claire, what was his name?
Ethan Carter. Carter, Claire said. And Victoria, before you say another word, you should probably know he's the man who did the steering column recall in 2021. She let that sit. The one your father's company was a supplier on.
That recall is the reason we got the Marion County contract in the first place because the primary bidder went under. Victoria did not move. He built the ground you're standing on, Claire said, and you had him arrested on it. At 5: 03, Renata Osai from internal audit sent her screenshotted vendor file to a reporter at the Columbus Dispatch, then sat in her car in the parking garage for 20 minutes and then drove home and told her husband she thought she might have just ended her career. At 5: 40, Danny Whitcomb handed a printed email to a woman named Maya Reynolds in the lobby of a Hampton Inn and Maya read it standing up and then she sat down on a luggage cart because her legs went out from under her.