Page 51 of Alien War Daddy's Got Rizz
Either agree, or risk being painted as unreasonable — a CEO more in love with power than people.
Tidball is in the room. Leaning back in his chair, expression serene as a lake before a storm. Always the soothing voice. Always the whisper that says,Look at the optics. It’s for the greater good.
“Yara,” he murmurs, like a lullaby with a bite, “if you shift the terms even a little, you preserve the company’s reputation. You show strength. You show compassion.”
I want to scream.
Because compassion shouldn’t be used as leverage.
Because optics shouldn’t cost my company’s future.
And because trust — the fragile kind — shouldn’t be traded like currency.
But their calm voices echo off the glass, and I realize I’m the one standing alone in the center of a corporate storm.
I inhale — slow, deliberate. My lungs don’t want to work, but they do anyway.
“We can’t cede proprietary R&D,” I say, voice firm. “Not when innovation is what sustains us. Not when it’s what will get us out of this debt cycle.”
Foster’s smile stays too bright.
“Then we hold out until worse consequences come,” he says.
Then his eyes soften — not warmth exactly — but that practicedempathythat makes you think you’re understood even as you get cut to pieces.
“CY8 has been underperforming. The Combine Board has concerns. If we don’t see movement, the solution will be imposed — not negotiated.”
I look at Tidball.
He nods once.
A tiny, calm, fatherly nod that drills into me like a nail.
Hewantsme to concede.
He wants me to fold.
I feel like I’m shrinking.
And yet, I feel something else.
A furnace.
Deep in my chest.
Hot.
Unignorable.
“Foster,” I say, breath hitting my words like wind against stone, “I want what’s best for veterans. I do. But I won’t liquidate CY8’s soul to do it.”
His expression flickers — just a microsecond — like something inside him tasted bile.
But his voice is still smooth, still refined:
“CY8’s soul isn’t lost yet,” he says. “You only need to show you’re reasonable.”
“Reasonable?” I echo. “At what cost?”
