Elaine asked Garrett to leave the room.
He sat alone in a conference room for fifty-eight minutes.
When invited back, he already knew.
The board voted four to one to remove him as chief executive.
Garrett was the opposing vote.
Brad abstained from part of the discussion because of his own involvement at the summit but supported an interim leadership transition.
Garrett retained his equity.
He was not erased from the company.
He was offered a short advisory role with no management authority while the board began a permanent CEO search.
He declined.
Tessa’s situation was handled separately.
The board concluded that filming and publicly mocking an attendee violated the company’s communications policy and demonstrated serious judgment failures for a chief marketing officer.
But investigators also reviewed whether Garrett had encouraged the post.
He had not explicitly told her to publish it.
That mattered.
Tessa remained responsible for her own decision.
Prism terminated her employment after review.
She did not disappear professionally.
No industry-wide blacklist existed.
For several months, however, employers who searched her name found the clip.
Two opportunities ended after interviews.
Another company eventually hired her for a non-executive communications role.
Later, she would tell a friend that the worst part was not losing the title.
It was rewatching herself laugh behind the camera.
At the time, she had believed she was documenting Garrett being funny.
Later, she understood she had helped turn someone’s humiliation into content.
Brad Collins faced his own consequences.
His first LinkedIn statement was exactly as cautious as Willa would have expected.
I was present during an incident in which another attendee was treated disrespectfully. I failed to intervene. I should have done more.
Thousands of people praised him for accountability.
Then screenshots appeared.
Brad’s laughter.
His reaction to Tessa’s post.
Three fire emojis.
His first statement suddenly looked incomplete.
So Brad posted again.
This time, longer.
Less polished.
“I left out the part that made me look worse,” he wrote. “That means my first attempt at accountability was still reputation management.”
The sentence cost him more admiration.
It also sounded more honest.
As interim CEO, Brad faced Prism employees directly.
No cameras.
No press.
He stood in the company cafeteria.
“I laughed.”
The room was silent.
“I did not make Garrett’s comments.”
“I also did nothing to stop them.”
“I laughed because that was easier than challenging my friend.”
A product manager asked:
“Would you be saying this if the woman weren’t Willa Townsend?”
Brad looked at her.
“I don’t know.”
The answer surprised everyone.
He continued.
“And that is part of what scares me.”
Prism survived.
The company did not collapse because of one scandal.
Real companies rarely vanish that neatly.
It lost momentum.
Two potential funding leads paused discussions.
One withdrew.
Another demanded governance changes.
The board cut spending.
Delayed expansion.
Reduced hiring.
Brad remained interim CEO for six months before an external executive was appointed.
Prism eventually raised a smaller round than Garrett had wanted.
Enough to survive.
Not enough to continue spending recklessly.
The company became quieter.
Possibly healthier.
Garrett disappeared from public view.
At first, he was furious.
At Willa.
At Rachel.
At Brad.
At the board.
At social media.
At journalists.
He told himself the punishment exceeded the offense.
One awful morning.
One confrontation.
One failure.
Why should three years of work disappear behind it?
Then Elaine Wu called him two months after his removal.
She did not owe him the call.
Perhaps that was why he answered.
“You still think the summit cost you the company,” she said.
“It did.”
“No.”
Garrett stared out the window of his apartment.