From the kitchen, Mr. Darcy mewed.
“What does that have to do with what we’re discussing, Andrea?”
There it was. All formal. The return of the cyborg.
“It haseverythingto do with what we’re discussing.”
“How so?”
“You, Liam. It’s what you do, isn’t it?”
He looked at me, face blank. Then his tone lowered.
“What do I do, Andrea?”
“You decide. For everyone. Whether they want you to, or not.”
You take away the choice. You carry the load. You don’t letmebe the strongone.
And that means I’mvulnerable.
“That’s bullshit, Andy.”
“Is it? Because from where I’m sitting, that’s what it looks like.”
“Andrea, you actually don’t know what—”
“Novexia,” I said. “You decided it was fine just to pull it apart. Because it let you do whatyoudecided was the right thing. That people far away are more important than the ones right in front of you. You decided the collateral damage was acceptable.”
“That’s not—”
“Yes, it is. All you, your decision. Who gets to keep paying their mortgage and who doesn’t. Who’s useful and who’s not. Who gets cushioned with an NDA and who gets kicked to the curb like a—like an old kebab.”
“Like a … kebab?”
“Whatever. You move people around like chess pieces. You use your money to buy compliance. Silence. Whatever it is you need.”
Hugo, Sebastian, the Novexia board of directors. Even Karl at the clothing store. Everyone could be bought—influenced—by his money.
And I’ve taken his money too. I’m nobetter.
I felt a lump in my throat.
“What do you tell yourself to sleep at night? That it was ‘expedient’?” I bracketed the word in air quotes. “That you were just ‘optimizing’?”
“Andrea, that’s not fair.”
“It’s notfairto the people whose lives you’re blowing apart.”
Kelly facing debt collectors, moving back with her dangerous ex because she had nowhere else to stay. Monish unable to look Priya in the eye because he had to pull their kids out of school.
No, they weren’t bleeding on a battlefield.
But didn’t their pain count for something, too? Why couldn’the hold both of those pieces of the picture in his hands at the same time? Why did it have to be one or theother?
“Novexia wouldn’t survive if I didn’t.”
“It was doing just fine before you came along.”
