Chapter 120 The Truth Crashes Down 1

The conference room was two rooms from the dining room. Close enough to hear chairs move.

Alpha Sebastian sat with his hands folded. Somebody had refilled his water three times and nobody had spoken to him since he walked in.

He knew what this was. He’d have done the same thing. If he couldn’t sit in a room for forty minutes he had no business running Hale Group at all.

Jordan caught the movement in the hall first and stood. "Alpha Carter’s coming."

Alpha Sebastian got up.

"Alpha Carter. Finn."

"Mm." Alpha Carter came in without offering a hand. He didn’t sit down either, and neither did his son.

Alpha Sebastian didn’t wait to be asked.

"The contract’s on me. My personal conduct put the company in that position and I’m not going to dress it up. I’m addressing the board myself at eight."

"The contract’s gone." Alpha Carter waved that off. "I don’t need the speech. What’s the fix?"

Jordan passed the folder over. Alpha Sebastian held it out with both hands, and Alpha Carter tipped his chin at Finn to take it.

"Dr. Shaw’s patent. It’s not the Initiative, but half the industry has been circling it for two years."

Alpha Sebastian kept it short. "He won’t sell. He’ll partner. If Hale Group gets that partnership, the revenue is real and the optics fix themselves."

Finn read the first page before he handed it to his father.

He’d wondered all year why his father kept pushing this man forward.

Most people who’d had the day Alpha Sebastian just had would still be at headquarters arguing with the comms team.

This one had walked out of a federal building at midnight with a second plan in a folder.

Alpha Carter read it through. Took his time. When he looked up, some of the cold had come off him.

"The board’s going to want answers in the morning."

"They’ll get them."

"Losing a bid is business. Everybody loses bids." Alpha Carter set the folder down. "Letting your personal life walk into the middle of company operations is not business. That’s yours."

"It is. I let this pack down."

"If you want to keep your chair, you land Dr. Shaw." Alpha Carter said it flatly. "I can’t carry you past this on my own. Three seats is not the whole board."

"Understood. Thank you, Alpha Carter."

"How good are your odds? Dr. Shaw’s a hard man to move."

"I sat with him for an hour at the spring conference and we got along." Alpha Sebastian didn’t inflate it. "I’ll get him in a room. If I can’t close it, I’ll take whatever the board decides and I won’t fight it."

Alpha Carter’s mouth moved, almost.

"That’s the grit I saw in you back then. Miss this one and you’re demoted. I won’t fight for you. Close it and you get your dinner after all, plus another point of equity."

Standard playbook. Alpha Sebastian had used it himself. He’d made it through the night. Barely.

"Go home." Alpha Carter picked up the folder and handed it back. "Your father was at your headquarters this afternoon asking your people questions. I told them to keep their mouths shut."

He stopped at the door.

"Sebastian. Decide what you actually want. Your name, or a woman. Don’t let something like this come back around a second time."

"Thank you, Alpha Carter."

--

Alpha Sebastian got out of that house in one piece, which was more than he’d expected walking in. It was ten past one.

In the car he drank half a bottle of water in three swallows and let his head go back against the seat.

His phone was charged now.

He opened the news.

Top of the page, red banner on it.

BREAKING: Sovereign Processor Initiative Awards Federal Contract to Sterling Group

He tapped it.

The photo took a second to load.

Alpha Killian Sterling and Eira, shaking hands under the federal seal, both of them turned toward the camera.

Alpha Sebastian sat forward.

It was her. There was no arguing with it. Same hair, same suit, same everything he’d seen walking out of that building this morning.

Jordan watched it land and gave it a second before he spoke.

"Alpha. Luna Eira’s the lead engineer on the Sovereign Processor Initiative. She signed a federal nondisclosure when she came on. She couldn’t have told you, and she couldn’t have told anybody else either."

Alpha Sebastian’s fingers were shaking against the phone.

"Say that again."

He’d heard it. Jordan knew he’d heard it. He just needed it said twice.

Jordan pulled up his own phone and forwarded a link.

"The program office put this out at four. Feature interview, the whole team. Over a hundred thousand views by dinner."

He kept his voice flat, the way you do when the content is going to do the damage on its own. "Three minute video, team bios, project timeline. Dr. Thorne has the National Medal of Science, awarded posthumously. Luna Eira has the federal science achievement award from this year. Five people get it annually. She’s the youngest recipient they’ve ever had."

Jordan had learned all of this at two in the afternoon and he was still not over it.

Four years of a woman who drove a car with a hundred and forty thousand miles on it and made dinner for people who didn’t thank her. And she was one of five in the country.

Alpha Sebastian had built his career on reading people. He’d hired half his executive team out from under competitors.

He’d looked at his own wife every day for four years and seen a housekeeper with a lab badge.

There was one more thing Jordan hadn’t said yet.

Alpha Sebastian’s eyes hadn’t moved off the headline. He wasn’t scrolling.

"What else. Say it."