CHAPTER 182: The Meeting

POV: Avalon Pierce

He met Marcus Webb on a Wednesday at a coffee shop in Hayes Valley that Webb had suggested.

Webb was fifty something with silver at his temples. The kind of man who had been in enough rooms to have stopped performing confidence and arrived at the actual thing.

He stood when Avalon walked in and shook hands without the theatre that people used when they were trying to establish dominance.

Avalon sat down.

“You said you had something to tell me and that Daniel Reyes doesn’t know you’re telling me,” Avalon said. 

Webb looked at him for a moment.

“You don’t do small talks,” Webb said.

“I have a nine day old daughter at home,” Avalon said. “I don’t do small talk.”

Webb smiled.

“Daniel Reyes approached Vantara,” he said. “Not the other way around.”

Avalon looked at him.

“Six weeks ago,” Webb said. “Before your daughter was born. He contacted our CEO directly and suggested that Nexus might be acquirable if approached at the right moment. He said the right moment would be immediately after the birth of your first child.”

“He sold the timing,” Avalon said.

“Yes,” Webb said. “And he suggested four billion as the opening number because he believed you’d be distracted enough to negotiate rather than refuse outright.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Avalon asked.

“Because I was in the room when Daniel made the approach,” Webb said. “And I told our CEO it was wrong. That using a man’s newborn child as a negotiating vulnerability was the kind of thing that followed a company for years.” He looked at Avalon directly. “I was overruled.”

“So you’re here because you lost an internal argument?” Avalon asked.

“I’m here because I’ve been on Vantara’s advisory board for three years and I’ve watched them acquire seven platforms and strip every single one of them of whatever made them worth acquiring in the first place,” Webb said. “I got on the board because I believed they’d do it differently. They haven’t.” He paused. “And because Daniel Reyes sat in a room and sold your most vulnerable moment to people who intended to exploit it, that’s not something I can be part of without saying something.”

Avalon looked at his coffee.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Webb said. “I’m not asking for anything and I’m not negotiating a counter-position. I just thought you should know who came to whom and why.”

“And if I use this,” Avalon said. “If I go to my board with what you’ve told me?”

“Then, you go to your board,” Webb said. “I’ll confirm it if asked directly.”

“That’ll end your position at Vantara,” Avalon said.

“Probably,” Webb said. “It was ending anyway.” He picked up his coffee. “Some things you do because they’re right, not because they’re useful.”

Avalon looked at him.

“You sound like someone I used to know,” he said.

“Who?” Webb asked.

“My father,” Avalon said.

Webb was quiet for a moment.

“I read about your father,” he said. “After the foundation’s acknowledgement. What he tried to do.” He paused. “He would have hated Vantara.”

“Yes,” Avalon said. “He would have.”

He called Margaret from the car.

“Daniel Reyes approached Vantara six weeks ago,” he said. “He initiated the acquisition conversation and suggested the timing around Elena’s birth as a strategic vulnerability.”

Silence.

“You’re certain,” Margaret said.

“I have a witness who was in the room,” he said. “Marcus Webb. Vantara advisory board. He’ll confirm it.”

“Avalon.” Margaret’s voice was careful. “Daniel has been on your board for four years. He has access to everything.”

“I know,” he said.

“This isn’t just disloyalty,” she said. “This is a breach of fiduciary duty. Sharing confidential company information with a potential acquirer.”

“I know what it is,” he said. “I need you to build the case today. Clean and airtight. I want him off the board before the end of the week.”

“That’s fast,” she said.

“He used my daughter,” Avalon said. “There’s no version of this where he stays.”

“Okay,” Margaret said. “Today.”

He got home at noon.

Selene was on the couch with Elena asleep on her chest, laptop open, reading something with the focused attention that meant foundation business, which he’d stopped pointing out because she wouldn't listen when he did.

She looked up when he came in.

“Tell me,” she said.

He told her.

All of it. Daniel approaching Vantara. The timing. Webb in the coffee shop. Margaret building the case.

When he finished she was quiet for a moment.

“He used Elena,” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

“As a vulnerability,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Our nine day old daughter was a negotiating strategy to someone on your board,” she said.

“Was,” he said. “Past tense.”

She looked at Elena sleeping on her chest.

At the small face with Nene’s expression, already assessing, already finding things mildly insufficient.

“Good,” she said. 

He sat beside her on the couch.

She shifted slightly and his arm went around her without deciding to.

Elena breathed between them.

“Webb said my father would have hated Vantara,” he said.

“Webb’s right,” Selene said.

“He also said ‘there are things you do because they’re right not because they’re useful,” he said.

“He sounds like someone worth knowing,” she said.

“He does,” Avalon agreed.

She looked at him.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m angry but I’m okay.”

She leaned her head against his shoulder.

He looked at Elena.

“She’s going to have a very interesting life,” he said.

“She already is,” Selene said.

Margaret called at four.

“The case is built,” she said. “Clean and airtight as requested. Daniel’s counsel will receive the formal notice of removal tomorrow morning.”

“Good,” Avalon said.

“There’s one more thing,” Margaret said. “Webb contacted me directly an hour ago. He wants to know if there’s a role for him at Nexus. Not on the board tho, he suggested something like an independent ethics advisor. Someone whose job is specifically to raise the concerns that get overruled in other rooms.”

Avalon looked at Selene across the apartment.

She was feeding Elena now, not looking at him, but he could see from the angle of her head that she was listening.

“Tell him I’ll call him tomorrow,” Avalon said.

“I thought you’d say that,” Margaret said.

He hung up.

“An ethics advisor,” Selene said without looking up.

“You were listening,” he said.

“I’m always listening,” she said. “Someone who raises the concerns that get overruled in other rooms.”

“Yes,” he said.

“Nene would have hired him immediately,” she said.

“Without guilt,” he said.

She looked up at him.

Smiled.