Dylan kept insisting each discrepancy was interpretation.
Then Renata found the sentence that ended that defense.
She tapped a handwritten note from forty minutes earlier.
“I asked whether Cross Harbor would accept a thirty-day suspension right,” she said.
“You told me Mr.
Cross said yes.”
Ethan shook his head.
“I said I’d consider a thirty-day cure period.”
The two consortium representatives exchanged a look.
Dylan reached for his phone.
Ethan put one hand flat on the table.
“Leave it there.”
“You don’t get to confiscate my property.”
“I’m not confiscating anything.
I’m telling you that this meeting is over, your authority to speak for Cross Harbor is suspended, and our legal team will preserve every company communication connected to this transaction.
You can walk out with your phone.
You cannot walk out pretending you’re still my representative.”
Dylan’s breathing changed.
Mia heard it before she saw the fear in his face.
He looked at her.
“You should have stayed out of this the first time.”
Nobody moved.
Mia felt the words like a door unlocking.
Ethan turned slowly.
“The first time?”
Dylan blinked.
Too late.
Renata leaned back in her chair.
Mia said nothing.
She did not need to.
Dylan had just connected himself to an incident he had spent the last ten minutes pretending not to know existed.
He tried to repair it.
“I mean whatever complaint she claims she made.
Obviously this isn’t the first time she’s interfered in company business.”
“I never told you what the previous complaint was about,” Mia said.
The color drained from his face again.
Ethan pulled his laptop closer.
He did not open the contract.
He opened Cross Harbor’s internal vendor archive.
Two years earlier, Dylan Price had not been Ethan’s personal interpreter.
He had been one of several subcontracted language reviewers used during Cross Harbor’s expansion into European ports.
His name had appeared deep in the approval chain of Mia’s disputed file.
Ethan found it in less than four minutes.
Reviewer: D.
Price.
Mia stared at the screen.
For two years she had remembered the file, the accusations, the compliance interviews and the final letter.
She had never seen the reviewer identity.
Access to that part of the audit trail had been restricted above her level.
Ethan looked at Dylan.
“You reviewed the document she was fired over.”
Dylan said nothing.
“And tonight,” Ethan continued, “you arranged to work this negotiation knowing she would be serving the room.”
“You can’t prove that.”
Mia picked up her phone.
The anonymous message was still open.
