A rescue investment could keep operations going, but only if the books were made reliable.

I expected Silas to step in and solve it with a signature.

Instead Adrian’s team proposed bridge financing conditioned on independent oversight and the preservation of jobs where financially feasible.

The terms would go to a committee without Silas’s vote.

No one could promise that every factory line would stay open.

That honesty frightened me more than a grand declaration would have.

The people I worked with had mortgages and children.