Brenda Lawson sat to my right.

She tapped her closed fountain pen against a stack of printed banking ledgers.

Two of our senior commercial real estate directors, David and Marcus, sat across from her.

“We received the formal request from Douglas Kingsley this morning,” Brenda said.

“He wants you to sign the two-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar corporate loan guarantee before noon.”

“Deny it,” I said.

Brenda uncapped her fountain pen with a sharp click.

“Draft the formal rejection of the loan guarantee,” I told her.