"I have no comment on internal governance matters," he said. It was the most restrained sentence he had spoken in twenty-four hours. His driver opened the Maybach door, and Charles climbed inside without looking back.
At Meridian, the work began before the directors left the boardroom. Margaret asked for a schedule of every critical client obligation due within the following thirty days, with an owner and backup contact assigned to each. Philip supplied the list and learned that three entries lacked confirmed owners because the responsible managers had resigned. He arranged temporary coverage and then instructed his assistant to contact the teams directly rather than asking them to provide glossy presentations about their readiness.
Victoria established a temporary document-preservation directive that applied to relevant finance, procurement, human resources, and executive communications. The directive was carefully limited to material connected with the review, and employees were told not to conduct their own investigations or contact witnesses on behalf of management. It also included a channel through outside counsel for staff who believed records were missing or had concerns about retaliation. Isaiah insisted the notice be written in language ordinary employees could understand without consulting a lawyer.
The first draft described a comprehensive governance initiative designed to maximize transparent stakeholder accountability. Isaiah read the sentence aloud and looked at Victoria. "If I worked on the service desk," he said, "I wouldn't know whether that means I should preserve an email or bring a sandwich to a committee." Victoria laughed once and rewrote it.
The final notice stated that Meridian was reviewing certain spending, hiring, and management practices, that employees should retain relevant records, and that good-faith reports would be reviewed by people outside the chain of management being questioned. It also said no employee should assume an accusation was proven before an independent review was complete. The last point mattered because Isaiah did not want reform to become a different kind of arbitrary authority. The purpose was to create a system more accountable than the one Charles had led, not merely more favorable to the new owner.
At eleven thirty, Margaret walked onto the operations floor without an entourage. The room contained forty desks, low partitions, and an exhausted collection of people whose jobs would become harder before the integration became smoother. She introduced herself to Celeste Moore and asked for the status of the client attrition files. Celeste handed her a list of unresolved data mismatches and said she had been trying to get someone to approve the necessary reconciliation for two months.
Margaret studied the list and asked why approval had not been given. Celeste explained that the project had been categorized as maintenance rather than revenue growth, placing it below a spending threshold reserved for initiatives with a visible financial return. The classification had made sense to someone who never watched frustrated clients call the support line because their reports were inconsistent. Margaret asked who made the classification and then promised to bring the issue to the transition committee that afternoon.
Celeste did not look impressed. She had heard promises from executives before, usually followed by meetings with more action items than resources. Margaret noticed her expression and felt a small, deserved embarrassment. "You don't have to believe me because I came downstairs," she said. "I'll give you the name of the person responsible for the decision and a date when you'll receive the answer. If it doesn't come, write to me directly."