Cornered

"You want to know something funny?" Sterling said, and the laugh had curdled into something uglier. "I already have a buyer. Praxis Capital. Signed letter of intent, sitting in my desk drawer since Tuesday. Forty-one percent above book value, no questions asked about the company's finances, no questions asked about mine."

"Sterling." Rosalind's voice cracked like a shot. "What have you done?"

"What I had to. Because I was about to inherit a company that's apparently been on life support for eleven years, funded by the brother everyone told me to stop being angry at, and I needed an exit before anyone found out how deep I actually am." He looked at Weston, and for the first time all week, there was no contempt in it, only something raw and frightened. "You want the truth? Fine. I owe people money. A lot of it. The kind of people who don't send letters. I told Dad I saw you at that terminal because if I didn't give him someone, it was going to be me, and I was twenty-six and terrified and I have hated myself every day since — but not enough to fix it. Never enough to fix it."

Nobody in the room spoke. Voss had gone very still by the door. Okoro had stopped reaching for her phone.

"The Praxis deal closes tomorrow morning at nine," Sterling said, straightening his jacket like it could straighten anything else about him. "Signature's mine to give — I still hold enough shares tonight, before your thirty days run out officially. So congratulations on your big reveal, Weston. Real touching. But by the time anyone can hand you a controlling stake, there might not be a company left to control."

He walked out past his mother without looking at her, past Voss without a word, and the study door clicked shut behind him with a finality that made the framed photograph of the family's first cargo ship rattle against the wall.

Rosalind turned to Weston, her face a wreck of grief and fury and something that might have been hope. "Nine o'clock tomorrow," she said. "Weston. What are we going to do?"