Elion’s Head of Strategy.
The title fit because strategy led every movement. She held a pen like an instrument meant for clean decisions. Efficient. Unsparing.
And when she smiled, her perfect white teeth flashed like a warning.
David Broughton arrived last, sleeves rolled to his elbows, thumb dragging once along his jaw—his tell that the terms weren’t adding up.
Late fifties, maybe early sixties. Full head of white hair. Beard trimmed just as tight. Shorter than Kevin, softer through the middle in that way of men who’d traded gym hours for long nights and longer contracts years ago.
He tucked his folder under his arm. Precise. Contained.
Our Chief Legal Officer didn’t raise his voice or rush his thinking—but if Holt tried to corner us, David would take the deal apart line by line.
Kevin sank into a chair with a grunt. “So, Damien Holt called you himself?”
“He caught me off guard,” I admitted. “He knew our numbers, our market posture—he even referenced the Global Tech Forum.”
Jennifer’s pen tapped twice against her notebook.
Her tell forwe need to pay attention.
“This isn’t casual. He’s evaluating.”
“For what?” I asked. “Partnership? Acquisition? Reconnaissance?”
“All the above,” David said, flipping his folder open. “With Falkirk, it’s never one-dimensional.”
Kevin rubbed his temples.
“Look,” he started, dragging the word the way he always did before delivering news nobody wanted. “Falkirk doesn’t partner. They absorb.” A beat. “We should be preparing for a fight, not a handshake.”
“Exactly.” I turned to Jennifer. “Two prep packets: one public for Falkirk, one internal with worst-case scenarios.”
She nodded, already scribbling. “Already started.”
“Kevin, run merger models—where we scale, where we lose autonomy.”
“On it.”
“David—engagement guardrails. Hard limits. Exit clauses. No corner traps.”
He scribbled so hard the pen looked like it might snap.
“Drafted by tonight.” His eyes lifted to mine. “And, Emma—don’t trust a single word from Holt. Men like him never call without leverage.”
“We built Elion to last, not to hand it over,” I said, my shoulders stiffening as the scale of it settled in.
A conglomerate powerful enough to swallow us whole.
One that could,the old voice breathed. But I shoved it back, refusing to let the crack show.
Kevin met my eyes. “Then we make damn sure it does.”
I managed a smile.
A knock broke through the room’s tension.
My assistant Sarah stepped in with a Post-it stuck to her finger.
