“No,” Ethan said softly.
Every head turned toward him.
He almost wished he hadn’t spoken.
Then he remembered the supervisor’s smile when he had threatened his job.
Ethan straightened.
“You said, ‘Don’t get involved.'”
The supervisor glared at him.
“Watch yourself.”
The threat came out by instinct.
It was the worst possible thing he could have said.
One executive’s expression changed immediately.
Harold leaned forward in the wheelchair.
“Watch himself?”
The supervisor realized too late what he had done.
“I didn’t mean—”
“You fired him.
He’s standing here with no badge and no job, and you’re still threatening him because he repeated your words accurately?”
The security supervisor cleared his throat.
“There may also be camera coverage of the area.”
That changed everything.
The former supervisor’s eyes flicked toward the ceiling.
Ethan followed his gaze.
A security camera sat above the concourse, angled toward the seating area where Harold had nearly fallen.
Harold noticed the look.
“Good,” he said.
“Preserve the footage.”
The security supervisor nodded.
“Immediately.”
The man stepped aside and spoke quietly into his radio.
The supervisor’s face lost another shade of color.
“Mr.
Grant, I think this is being blown out of proportion.”
Harold gave him a long look.
“A young employee risked the job he depends on because you ordered him to ignore a person in distress.
You then fired him publicly when he refused.
Now that witnesses and cameras exist, you would like the matter to become small.”
The supervisor said nothing.
Harold turned to Ethan.
“How long have you worked here?”
“Almost a year.”
“Any disciplinary problems?”
Ethan hesitated.
“No, sir.”
The executive beside Harold looked at the supervisor.
“Is that true?”
The man reluctantly nodded.
“His record is clean.”
Harold looked almost amused.
“So your clean-record employee saw an emergency, helped, and was fired within minutes.”
“He refused an instruction.”
“An instruction you apparently shouldn’t have given.”
The executive beside Harold finally introduced the part Ethan still did not understand.
“Mr.
Brooks,” she said, “Mr.
Grant chairs the ownership group that controls this airport’s operating company.”
Ethan stared at Harold.
