Her brow lifts slightly.
“That might be the nicest thing anyone’s said to me here,” she mutters.
“It is not a compliment.”
“I’ll take it anyway.”
A faint shift in the air—amusement.
Mine.
Unwanted.
I straighten.
“You will report inefficiencies directly,” I say.
Her expression sharpens.
“That sounds a lot like favor.”
“It is function,” I correct.
“Right,” she says. “Function that just happens to involve me talking to you.”
“Do not misunderstand the parameters,” I say. “This is not protection.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
“Then understand this clearly,” I continue. “If you become a liability?—”
“You’ll fix it,” she finishes.
A beat.
“Yes.”
She nods once.
“Fair.”
The simplicity of her acceptance unsettles me more than resistance would have.
I turn.
The conversation is complete.
But as I walk away, the realization follows, more defined now, more difficult to dismiss.
Her thinking improves outcomes.
It bypasses inefficiency.
It produces results.
And I am incorporating it.
That should not matter.
