Chapter 4 - The Downpour
Ethan sat in the driver's seat of his eleven-year-old Subaru, parked two blocks down from the building.
The rain drummed heavily against the windshield. He had placed the cardboard box carefully on the passenger seat, protecting the photograph of Sarah and Lily with his dry navy coat. He turned the key in the ignition, letting the engine hum quietly while he turned on the heater to defrost the glass.
His phone chimed in the cupholder.
It was Malcolm.
Ethan picked it up and swiped the screen. "Hello, Malcolm."
"Ethan, where are you?!" Malcolm’s frantic voice exploded through the car speakers. "Claire just called me! I am in an SUV running red lights on Wacker Drive right now! Tell me you didn't leave the premises!"
"I'm in my car, Malcolm," Ethan said softly, leaning his head back against the headrest. "It's fine. Really."
"It is NOT fine!" Malcolm yelled. "Some mid-level suit with a five-hundred-dollar haircut just walked the founder of our company out the front door because you left at five to pick up Lily! I am going to destroy him, Ethan! I am going to dismantle his career down to the studs!"
"Malcolm," Ethan said, his voice dropping into that calm, unshakeable tone that had guided Crestline through three market crashes. "Take a breath."
"How can you be calm?!"
"Because Derek Lawson showed me exactly what Lakeview has become while we weren't looking," Ethan said, watching the rain stream down his window. "He's not an anomaly, Malcolm. He's a symptom. We've been letting department managers optimize people out of the equation for three years. If he did it to me, imagine what he's been doing to the junior analysts who can't afford to lose their health insurance."
The line went quiet for five seconds as Malcolm absorbed the truth of Ethan's words.
"What do you want to do, Ethan?" Malcolm asked quietly.
May you like
Ethan looked at the photograph of Sarah on the seat beside him. He remembered the promise they had made in that rented Milwaukee garage: A company built without treating people as disposable parts.
"I want you to call an emergency board meeting on the sixth floor of Lakeview in twenty minutes," Ethan said smoothly. "And make sure Derek Lawson is sitting at the head of the table."
