CHAPTER 11: Corporate Advice

Casimir

I sat back in my leather chair and watched the room. The executive boardroom was on the top floor of the building. It had floor-to-ceiling windows and a long mahogany table. Twelve board members sat around it.

Elias sat at the head of the table. I sat to his left.

The air in the room was thick with tension. We were discussing the acquisition of Vanguard, a massive European shipping company.

It was a complex merger. If we bought them, we would control the primary supply routes across the Atlantic. If we failed, our competitors would swallow them and choke us out of the market.

"The valuation is too high," Arthur Miller said. He was a senior executive, an older man who always avoided taking risks. He adjusted his glasses and looked at Elias. "Vanguard has outdated fleets. Their warehouses in Germany need total renovations. We are taking on too much debt for a company that is bleeding money."

"They are not bleeding money," Gideon Hayes replied.

Gideon sat across from me. He was an old friend of our father and one of the original directors of Stavros Enterprises. He wore a gray suit and kept his hands folded neatly on the table. He kept his tone strictly business, but I could hear the hard edge in his voice.

"They are restructuring," Gideon continued. "It is a temporary loss of capital. If we do not buy them by the end of the quarter, Sullivan Cross will. Do you want to hand our biggest rival the European market just because you are afraid of a little debt?"

"It is not a little debt," Miller argued. "It is three hundred million dollars in hidden liabilities. Our logistics division will take a massive hit. We cannot integrate their systems into ours without shutting down operations for a month."

"We can phase the integration," Gideon said.

"That will take two years," Miller shot back. "And in those two years, the overhead costs will ruin our quarterly margins. The shareholders will panic."

"The shareholders care about long-term dominance," Gideon said. "I built the foundation of this company with Elias's father. You do not win global markets by playing it safe, Arthur."

The argument went back and forth. Half the table sided with Miller. The other half sided with Gideon.

I stopped listening to them. I already knew the financials. I had read the Vanguard files three times. I knew Miller was exaggerating the liabilities, and I knew Gideon was ignoring the integration costs. They were both wrong.

I looked away from the table and glanced at the corner of the room.

Sybil stood by the digital projection screen. She held a digital tablet in her hands, quietly taking the official meeting minutes. She wore a simple gray skirt and a white blouse. She kept herself perfectly still, trying to blend into the background.

But she was not just taking dictation.

I watched her eyes. They darted across the projected spreadsheets on the screen. She was reading the numbers.

When Miller claimed the integration would take two years, Sybil frowned slightly. Her brow furrowed and she chewed on the inside of her bottom lip.

When Gideon dismissed the fleet renovations, her grip on the tablet tightened. She shook her head, just a fraction of an inch.

She was reacting to the data.

I remembered what Elias told me. She used to work in the strategy department on the forty-second floor.

She was not a career receptionist. She spent two years analyzing risk assessments and market trends for this exact company. She knew how to read a balance sheet.

Miller slammed his hand flat on the table, drawing my attention back.

"We are blind here," he said loudly. "We do not have the internal logistics to support a European fleet. We do not even know how long it will take to transition their shipping routes to our servers. It is a massive blind spot."

"It is an acceptable risk," Gideon said.

"It is financial suicide," Miller retorted.

The room erupted into overlapping voices. Executives started talking over each other. The noise was irritating. It was a complete waste of time.

"Enough," Elias said.

His voice was not loud, but it cut through the room like a knife. The board members instantly fell silent. Elias looked at Miller, then at Gideon. He was preparing to mediate the dispute, to pull the argument back to the center.

I did not want to mediate. I wanted a straight answer.

I looked back at the corner of the room. Sybil was staring at the spreadsheet on the screen, her eyes tracking the columns with intense focus. She looked completely lost in the numbers.

"The logistics are not a blind spot," I said.

The room turned to look at me. I kept my posture relaxed, leaning back in my chair.

"Vanguard uses a decentralized routing system," I stated flatly. "It is messy, but it is not impossible to integrate. We have people in this building who map out these exact transitions every single day."

"Our analysts need six weeks to build a transition model," Miller argued. "We do not have six weeks to make an offer."

"We do not need six weeks," I said.

I turned my chair slightly. I ignored the twelve highly paid executives sitting around the table and I looked directly at the woman standing quietly in the shadows.

"Sybil," I called out.

Sybil jumped slightly. Her head snapped up and her wide, brown eyes locked onto mine. She looked completely shocked that I had just spoken her name.

"Yes, Mr. Stavros?" she asked. Her voice was quiet, but it carried clearly across the quiet room.

"You spent two years in the strategy department," I said. "You analyzed our domestic shipping routes."

She swallowed hard. "Yes, sir."

"Look at the projected timeline on the screen," I instructed.

She looked at the digital board.

"Miller says it will take two years to integrate Vanguard’s fleet into our system," I said. "Gideon says we can phase it in without major disruptions. You know our internal capacity better than the men sitting at this table. Who is right?"

Elias shifted in his chair. He looked at me, his dark eyes narrowing slightly in warning. He did not like me pulling her into the crossfire.

I ignored him. I kept my eyes entirely on Sybil.

"Tell the room," I commanded. "Give me your assessment on the logistics."

The massive boardroom fell completely dead silent. You could hear a pin drop on the carpet.

Miller’s mouth dropped open. Gideon stared at me in absolute disbelief. The shock on every single executive's face was painfully evident. They turned their heads, one by one, to stare at the young assistant standing in the corner.

They could not believe the Executive Vice President of Corporate Affairs had just bypassed the entire board of directors to ask a twenty-three-year-old secretary for corporate advice.

Sybil stood frozen against the wall. She looked at the twelve billionaires staring at her. Then she looked at Elias. Finally, her eyes met mine.

I did not blink. I waited for her to prove to the room exactly what she was capable of.