I simply returned to my dinner, because I had learned long ago that the strongest response to a man performing his own importance is to be visibly, genuinely unbothered.

Chapter 11 — The Fallout

The real collapse began the next morning, and it did not come from me.

It came from the world doing arithmetic.

Three of NexoCloud’s largest enterprise clients canceled their contracts within hours of learning about the pending domestic-violence charges, because serious clients do not want their brand standing next to that.

Two of Jonathan’s best engineers resigned the same day.

And the board of Ironwood Capital, seeing a portfolio company suddenly hemorrhaging clients and talent while its founder faced criminal charges he had sworn under oath did not exist, did precisely what the morals clause instructed them to do: they opened his file and triggered the emergency termination.