Town hall days had a particular taste now.
Metallic. Like adrenaline and regret.
The auditorium filled fast.
Hale employees. NexTelis transplants. Even a few contractors slipped in, badges tinted a different color like they were marked for some softer fate.
Margot stood backstage, headset on, watching Declan’s silhouette at the podium.
He looked… normal.
Tie straight. Shirt crisp. Posture relaxed.
Only she could see the tension in his hands.
She touched her earpiece. “You’re on in thirty,” she murmured.
“I hate this,” he muttered back.
“I know,” she said. “Do it anyway.”
He exhaled.
“Hi,” he said, when the MC finished the perfunctory intro and waved him on.
His voice filled the room.
All-hands three.
Third since the deal.
Third since he’d stood up in front of thousands of people and said, *You don’t owe me your trust.*
This time, he led with what everyone was buzzing about.
“The rumor mill beat us to it,” he said. “So let’s start there.”
A low ripple passed through the room.
“Some of you saw a Slack thread yesterday about a pilot we did with NexTelis in 2013,” he went on. “You asked if it was true. It is.”
No flinching.
Good.
“We tested some of our early optimization software with part of their supply chain,” he said. “We were young. Hungry. Excited to see our code in the wild.”
He paused.
“I didn’t think enough about what that would mean for the people at the other end of those contracts,” he continued. “I saw data. Throughput. Efficiency. I didn’t see… your fathers. Your uncles. Your neighbors. My grandfather.”
Her throat tightened.
He took a breath.
“NexTelis didn’t roll out our pilot broadly,” he said. “Not as we designed it. They did, however, take ideas from it and build their own versions. And they used those to squeeze small suppliers in ways I wouldn’t have chosen, if I’d been paying attention then the way I try to now.”
He let that sink in.
“That’s on them,” he said. “Legally. They made those calls. They wrote those contracts. They enforced them. But my hands aren’t clean either. I helped make tools without fully understanding how they’d be used. That’s on me. On us.”
He looked straight into the nearest camera.
“You can decide how much that matters,” he said. “What matters to me is what we do with that knowledge now. Hiding it doesn’t make it go away. Talking about it doesn’t fix it. Doing something might.”
He gestured.
The screen behind him flicked to a slide: *Supplier Remediation Task Force*.
Margot’s heart kicked.
“This is Margot’s baby,” he said. “And my headache.”
Laughter rippled.
He smiled faintly.
“We’re auditing NexTelis’s old contracts,” he said. “Starting with the worst. We’re talking to people they hurt. We’re working with partners like Priya Shah to restructure loans and support wind-downs when that’s the right choice. It’ll be slow. It’ll be messy. It’ll cost us money. We’re doing it anyway.”
He glanced toward the wing where she stood.
She scowled at him.
He smirked.
“We’ll report back,” he went on. “Regularly. Internally, for sure. Externally, when we can without turning this into a PR circus. You can hold us accountable to that. To me.”
He shifted topics then.
Integration progress.
New product lines.
Wins.
Losses.
She half-listened, half-watched the chat feed on her tablet.
> *@JessC:* respect for not dodging > *@randomecon:* talk is cheap, show me the checks > *@nextransplant:* still wary. but this is more than we ever got from Connolly.
She filed it away.
After, when the lights came up and people started trickling out, Nina cornered her.
“That,” Nina said, “wasn’t terrible.”
“High praise,” Margot said.
“He sounded… human,” Nina said. “Scary.”
“That’s his new thing,” Margot said. “Authenticity with a side of existential dread.”
Nina huffed. “How are you?”
“Less set on fire than yesterday,” Margot said. “You?”
“Constantly simmering,” Nina said. “We should bottle it. Hale-branded nervous sweat.”
Margot laughed.
Her phone buzzed.
Her mother.
She frowned.
“Give me a sec,” she murmured to Nina, stepping aside.
“Ma?” she answered.
“You on TV,” her mother said without preamble.
Margot’s stomach lurched. “What?”
“News,” her mother said. “They show your boss. Talk about deal. Pan camera. There you are. Standing in back. Looking very serious. Your father say you look like assassin.”
Margot pressed her free hand to her face. “Please tell me it was a flattering angle.”
“You look… small,” her mother conceded. “But powerful. Like… chili pepper.”
“I… don’t know what that means,” Margot said.
“People online say things,” her mother went on. “About boss. About pilot. About… ethics. Your father read comments. He get very red. Then he say, ‘At least this man admit.’”
Margot’s heart squeezed. “He… said that.”
“Yes,” her mother said. “He still angry. But less. He say, ‘My daughter is there. If he lie, she bite.’”
Margot laughed, tears stinging her eyes.
“I love him,” she whispered.
“You should,” her mother said. “He stubborn like you. Pain in ass for everyone but good for family.”
“I’ll tell him you said that,” Margot said.
“No,” her mother snapped. “Don’t tell him I say anything nice. He will get big head. We have to live with that.”
Margot smiled. “Okay. I won’t.”
“And you,” her mother added. “Be careful, ah. Lights very bright. Hard to see where you step.”
“I know,” Margot said.
“Good,” her mother said. “Come Sunday. I make fish. Your father promise not to talk about deal for one whole hour.”
“A miracle,” Margot said.
“Don’t make jokes about God,” her mother scolded. “He listening. He might take your boss away to teach you lesson.”
Margot swallowed.
“I… hope he doesn’t,” she said softly.
Her mother made a noise. “We see.”
She hung up.
Margot pocketed her phone.
Declan appeared at her elbow, tie loosened, eyes searching.
“How was it?” he asked. “From out there.”
“You didn’t sound like a sociopath,” she said. “Always a plus.”
He exhaled, some of the tension draining.
“And your father?” he asked.
Her head jerked. “You assume he watched.”
“He… seems the type,” he said.
“Nosy?” she asked.
“Invested,” he said.
A reluctant smile tugged at her mouth.
“He said… you admit,” she said. “He appreciated that. In his own way.”
Something like relief flickered across his face.
“Good,” he said.
“Don’t get used to it,” she added. “He’s still ready to fight you with a wrench.”
“I’d lose,” he said. “He’s scrappy.”
She laughed.
He smiled.
For a fleeting second, it felt easy.
Then Raj barreled up, waving his tablet.
“You’re trending,” he said.
Declan groaned. “No.”
“Yes,” Raj said. “#HaleTellsTheTruth. For like five minutes. Until some celebrity posts an ass shot. But still.”
Margot winced. “That’s… not the hashtag I would have picked.”
“PR is thrilled,” Raj said. “Legal… less so. Investors… divided.”
“So, usual,” Declan said.
“Exactly,” Raj said.
He scurried off.
Declan looked back at her.
“Therapy?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “You?”
“Later,” he said. “Kline moved me. I have… suppliers.”
“Always,” she said.
He hesitated.
“Six months,” he said softly.
“Six months,” she echoed.
“We’re… doing it,” he said. “So far.”
“So far,” she agreed.
He smiled, small and wry. “Don’t jinx.”
“Engineers don’t believe in jinxes,” she said.
“We believe in failure modes,” he said.
“Romantic,” she said.
He laughed.
Then went back to work.
She watched him go.
And, for the first time since the pilot email, thought: *Maybe.*
Just maybe.
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