Page 113 of Wild Card 13

Dad closed the folder with deliberate care before sliding it toward me. "I'll be present if you need me."

I looked up immediately. "You won't be."

A faint smile touched the corner of his mouth. "No." It wasn't a question.

Because if I was going to lead people, I had to be willing to have the hard conversations too.

"I'll have HR coordinate everything," I said quietly, more to myself than anyone else.

Sarah gave a single approving nod. "I'll have the paperwork ready and on your desk first thing in the morning."

Dad looked between the two of us before exhaling slowly. "Good."

The room fell quiet again.

Then his attention shifted to Bea. "Now," he said, his tone softening almost imperceptibly. "Let's talk about where we go from here."

Bea straightened immediately. It was subtle. The slight adjustment of her shoulders. The way her fingers released the mug she had been holding onto since I walked into the room. The quiet shift from a woman who had spent the last several hours having her personal life ripped apart publicly back into the professional who was already preparing for the next problem.

Beatriz Ribeiro did not know how to stop working.

I recognized it because apparently, neither did I.

"Dad," I started carefully. "Before we make any decisions about restructuring, we need to evaluate exactly what Charlotte handled. Her workload, her contacts, sponsor relationships, media obligations?—"

"Already done," he said.

I stopped. "What?"

His gaze moved toward Sarah.

She tapped once against her tablet. "Charlotte's responsibilities have been under review since November."

My eyebrows pulled together. "November?"

"Yes," Sarah answered.

"You've been reviewing the department for two months?" I asked.

Dad leaned back in his chair. "We've been reviewing every department for two months."

The answer was so simple. So obvious. While I had been treating every day like an emergency, like one more temporary problem I needed to solve before handing it back to someone else, everyone around me had been building something permanent.

"The organization changed this season," Dad continued. "It had to." His gaze shifted briefly toward Alois. "We spent too long reacting. To losses. To bad press. To outside opinions about what this team was supposed to be."

The room stayed quiet. He was right. The Frosthawks weren't fixed. But they weren't falling apart anymore either.

"Charlotte was very good at managing perception," Dad continued. "For a long time, that's what this organization thought it needed, but perception only matters if there's something real underneath it." A small crease formed between Bea's brows. Then my father looked directly at her. "And you reminded us of that."

Bea blinked.

"Dad—"

"This isn't personal, Bea."

That stopped her. Because it was exactly what she would have argued. That she was too close. That this was complicated. That everything that happened tonight somehow disqualified her instead of proving exactly why she belonged.

"You handled one of the worst organizational crises we've had in years," he continued. "Not because you controlled the story." His expression softened. "Because you protected the people inside it."