CHAPTER 108: James

POV: Selene Castellano

She didn’t sleep.

She laid in the dark running through six weeks of conversations. Every word James had said. Every question he’d asked. Every time he’d leaned forward and listened like nothing else mattered.

All of it potentially something else.

By morning she had a plan.

She called him at eight.

"I want to see you, and I want to see you now. It had to be this morning, and you have to come alone."

A pause on his end. Barely perceptible.

“Is something wrong,” he said.

“I’ll see you at nine,” she said.

She cut the call off before he had a chance to say another word.

He arrived at nine exactly with the same compact stillness. The same contained energy. Nothing different about him except everything different about what she now knew.

He was seated across from her, in the office of the foundation.

“Tell me what’s happened,” he said.

She put the document on the table.

Henderson Capital’s board of directors.

Third name from the top.

She watched his face.

He looked at it and went very still.

“You’re on Henderson’s board,” she said.

“Yes.”

“You didn’t tell us.”

“No.”

“Six weeks,” she said. “ Every meeting. Every conversation about structure and load paths and principles worth protecting.” Her voice was steady. Dangerously steady. “ Was any of it real.”

He looked up at her.

“All of it was real,” he said.

“How do I believe that.”

I just quit my position on Henderson's board about an hour ago.

She stared at him.

“What.”

"He had already quit his job that morning, before she even called him. To prove it, he pulled out his phone and showed her the email he had sent. The time stamp on it read 7:52 AM, which was eight minutes before she had called him. He explained that he had known about the company's acquisition strategy for three weeks and had actually voted against it at the last board meeting, but unfortunately, he was outvoted by a margin of four to one."

Selene looked at the email.

“Why didn’t you tell us,” she said.

He closed the phone, a mix of frustration and defeat etched on his face. "I thought I could stop it from the inside," he said, shaking his head. But it seemed he was wrong. Henderson had pushed forward, ignoring his vote. And to make matters worse, he had just found out that Henderson was speeding up the timeline. The gala the night before had apparently made him impatient, and now he was taking a more direct approach, cutting out the slow and careful planning they had originally discussed. He had even gone so far as to call him directly, bypassing the usual channels.

“You knew last night.”

“I suspected. I confirmed this morning.”

“And resigned.”

“The moment I confirmed it.”

“Why didn’t you call us yesterday,” she said. “ The moment you suspected.”

He was quiet for a moment.

"I had to be sure," he said. "If I had come to you with just a suspicion and it turned out to be wrong, it would have caused unnecessary chaos. So, I needed to have proof before taking any action."

"You kept saying we needed proof," she said again, "but the thing is, Diana was already sending us forty-three pages of it, which was completely unnecessary."

He looked at her.

“Diana sent you the file,” he said. It wasn’t a question. 

“Yesterday afternoon.”

He absorbed that.

"So you've known about this since yesterday," he said, his voice laced with a mix of surprise and annoyance. "And yet you didn't bother to call me until this morning, what was the reason for the delay?"

“I needed to think.”

“So did I.”

The room held the silence.

"James," she said, leaning in closer. "What were you doing on Henderson's board in the first place?"

He looked at his hands.

He explained that Henderson Capital had funded his second company, the one that ultimately failed. As a result, he owed them a seat on the board, which he had been honoring for the past two years. Despite the company's demise, he felt a strong sense of obligation to see this commitment through, and walking away from a debt, no matter how things had turned out, didn't feel right to him.

“And when he proposed this.”

“I thought I could redirect it. Use my position to slow it down. Find another path.” He looked up. “ I should have come to you the moment I heard the strategy. I chose to fight it quietly instead of telling you it existed.”

"She pointed out that Avalon had done the exact same thing to Claire, and now it was happening all over again."

He looked at her.

"I felt that they were controlling what I knew, rather than giving me the freedom to decide for myself. It was as if they were filtering the information, not trusting me to handle it on my own."

James was quiet for a long moment.

“Yes,” he said. “ I see that now.”

She looked at him.

“You should have told me,” she said.

“I know.”

As soon as you had a suspicion, that's when you should have acted, not when you finally got proof.

“I know that now.”

She sat back.

“Monday,” she said.

He looked up.

"We're still on to meet with Henderson," she said, "just as we planned."

“Selene—”

She told him bluntly, "You're going with us, and then you'll have to face the man who funded your company that didn't make it. You'll need to explain to him, in person, why this new idea of yours is not going to succeed."

James looked at her for a long moment.

“Why would I do that,” he said.

"You're obligated to give him a seat on the board,' she emphasized, 'not your silence, that's not what he's entitled to.'"

Avalon found her an hour later.

She told him everything.

When she finished he was quiet.

“Do you trust him,” he said.

"I know more now than I did an hour ago, but less than I did yesterday."

“That’s not an answer.”

She gazed out the window, a thoughtful expression on her face. "He's a truthful person," she said. "But he has a weakness - he likes to handle things on his own, without bothering others. He chose to fight his battles quietly, rather than sharing his concerns with us. That's a real flaw in his character. However, as soon as he confirmed the truth, he resigned, even before we had a chance to question him."

Avalon absorbed that.

“Monday,” he said.

“Monday.”

His phone buzzed.

He looked at it and went very still.

“What,” she said.

He turned the screen toward her.

He got a message from a number that was totally unfamiliar to him, and so was the number to the sender.

Tell James that I'm aware he stepped down, but that's not important right now. I have something that he's going to want even more than being on the board. - R.H.