“It’s due diligence,” Jennifer said. “Undercover. Because people tell the truth when they think no one important is listening.”
Marcus jabbed a finger at her. “You lied about who you are.”
“I didn’t lie,” Jennifer said. “I let you assume.”
Richard swallowed. “Ms. Morrison—why didn’t you announce yourself?”
Jennifer’s eyes stayed on Marcus. “Because I wanted to see how leadership behaves when there’s no spotlight.”
Marcus forced a laugh. “So you play dress-up and ambush me in a meeting? That’s your big move?”
Jennifer lifted her legal pad. “My big move is asking why your retention slide hides that your top three clients are sixty percent of revenue.”
A director cut in. “Marcus, answer her. Is Harmon forty-seven percent?”
Marcus opened his mouth, then closed it.
Jennifer turned another page. “And it’s not just Harmon.”
Marcus snapped, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I do,” Jennifer said. “Because I pulled your pipeline report.”
Marcus’s eyes widened. “You accessed my files?”
“Company files,” Jennifer corrected. “Company systems. Owned by the company.”
Richard said carefully, “Marcus, if she’s the majority—”
“I am,” Jennifer said. “And I reviewed what I own.”
Marcus’s voice went thin. “You can’t just walk in and—”
“Name three prospects,” Jennifer said, cutting him off. “Three that are actually committed, not ‘likely,’ not ‘warm,’ not ‘we had a great call.’ Committed.”
Marcus stared at his own slide deck like it might rescue him.
A director leaned forward. “Marcus. Three names.”
Marcus’s throat bobbed. “We’ve got… a few in late stage.”
Jennifer held up a hand. “No. Names.”
Silence.
Jennifer exhaled once, controlled. “You don’t have a pipeline. You have Harmon.”
Marcus tried to regain the room. “I grew sales forty-two percent.”
“You rode one relationship and called it growth,” Jennifer said. “Then you buried the risk because you wanted your bonus.”
Marcus’s eyes flashed. “That’s not fair.”
Jennifer’s voice sharpened. “Fair is telling the board the truth.”
She reached into her bag and pulled out a tablet, placing it face-up on the table.
Emails filled the screen.
Subject lines read:
HARMON RENEWAL — DO NOT FLAG
Q3 BOARD DECK — ADJUST RETENTION LANGUAGE
PIPELINE CLASSIFICATION — KEEP ‘COMMITTED’ TAGS
A director pushed her glasses up. “Is that… your email address, Marcus?”
Marcus lunged a half-step, then stopped, realizing everyone saw his name on the sender line.
“That’s stolen,” Marcus said.
Jennifer didn’t move. “It’s documented.”
Richard looked like he’d been punched. “Marcus… you told the board Harmon was stable.”
Marcus’s face twisted. “We were in discussions. It wasn’t final.”
Jennifer tapped the screen. “Then why did you write, ‘They’re gone if we don’t cut price by fifteen, and we can’t tell the board yet’?”
A director said quietly, “You can’t tell the board yet?”
Marcus snapped, “That’s taken out of context.”
Jennifer swiped to another email. “Here’s the context. You told your team to ‘massage the numbers’ so your forecast hit the bonus threshold.”
Marcus’s voice rose in panic. “Everybody does that.”
Jennifer’s eyes stayed cold. “Not here. Not anymore.”
Marcus looked around the table, searching for an ally.
No one met his gaze.
Richard finally spoke. “Marcus, did you misrepresent the pipeline in your board materials?”
Marcus swallowed hard. “I—presented it in the most optimistic view.”
One director slammed a folder shut. “That’s not an answer.”
Jennifer leaned in just slightly. “It’s an admission.”
Marcus turned to Richard, desperate. “I have a contract.”
Jennifer nodded. “You do.”
Marcus latched onto it. “It protects me.”
Jennifer’s voice went calm again, like a doctor delivering a diagnosis. “It protects you unless you’re terminated for cause.”
She slid a second document across the table.
Marcus didn’t touch it.
Richard did. His eyes scanned the page, then lifted—grim. “Misrepresentation of material information… constitutes cause.”
Marcus’s face drained.
Jennifer spoke like she was closing a file. “Effective immediately, Marcus Chen is terminated for cause.”
Marcus barked a laugh that cracked halfway through. “You can’t do that in a meeting.”
“I can,” Jennifer said. “I control the board vote.”
A director nodded once. Another said, “Seconded.”
Richard’s voice was heavy. “All in favor?”
Hands rose around the table—one after another, quiet and final.
Marcus stared at the hands like they were weapons.
Richard didn’t look at him. “Motion carried.”
Marcus’s chair scraped back. “You’re making a mistake.”
Jennifer stood too. “The mistake was letting you keep a company hostage to one client and a lie.”
Marcus’s eyes flicked to the door. “Security.”
Jennifer tapped the call button herself.
The two guards returned immediately.
Marcus pointed at Jennifer like he still believed in his old authority. “Escort her out.”
The guards didn’t move.
Jennifer said, “Please escort Mr. Chen to HR to surrender his badge and laptop.”
One guard nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
Marcus’s voice cracked. “This is insane. Richard, tell them—”
Richard finally met his eyes, and it was worse than anger. It was disappointment. “Marcus… don’t make it harder.”
Marcus grabbed his jacket with shaking hands. “I built this department.”
Jennifer replied, “You built a story.”
As the guards stepped closer, Marcus lowered his voice, bitter. “You enjoyed this.”
Jennifer shook her head once. “I hated it.”
Marcus scoffed. “Then why do it?”
“Because if Harmon walks and we’re unprepared,” Jennifer said, “people who did nothing wrong lose their jobs. I’m not letting your ego take payroll down with it.”
The room went still, the kind of still that meant the board finally understood the stakes.
Marcus’s shoulders slumped as if something inside him snapped.
He walked out between the guards, not fighting—just defeated.
The door shut.
For three seconds, nobody spoke.
Then Richard let out a breath. “Ms. Morrison… what happens now?”
Jennifer sat back down. “Now we tell the truth.”
A director asked, “Is Harmon really leaving?”
Jennifer nodded. “Their CFO told me yesterday. They’re signing with Vanguard unless we match pricing and rework service terms. Even then, it’s unlikely.”
Richard rubbed his forehead. “So Q4—”
“Will hurt,” Jennifer said. “But it won’t kill us if we act today.”
Another director leaned forward. “What do you need?”
Jennifer slid her legal pad to the center of the table and turned it so everyone could see her bullet points.
“First,” she said, “a full audit of sales reporting for the last six quarters.”
Richard nodded slowly. “Approved.”
“Second,” Jennifer said, “we create a real pipeline. No fantasy stages. No ‘committed’ unless legal has a signed letter of intent.”
A director said, “Finally.”
“Third,” Jennifer continued, “we stop building bonuses around short-term targets that reward lying.”
Richard looked down, ashamed. “That was my compensation committee.”
Jennifer didn’t twist the knife. “Then you’ll fix it.”
A director asked, “And funding? If Harmon drops, cash flow—”
Jennifer met their eyes. “Morrison Capital injects twelve million as a bridge. But it comes with controls. Transparent reporting. Weekly dashboards to the board. No surprises.”
The board members exchanged glances—relief mixed with embarrassment.
Richard straightened. “You’re saving the company.”
Jennifer replied, “I’m protecting my investment. And your people.”
He nodded, accepting that.
The meeting ended with decisions instead of applause.
By the time the board filed out, HR was already changing access permissions.
Marcus didn’t get a chance to “clean up his files.” He didn’t get a chance to spin a goodbye email.
His company phone was shut off before he reached the lobby.
Three days later, Meridian’s general counsel sent the board a memo: Marcus had been referred to regulators for fraudulent reporting tied to investor materials.
A week after that, news broke internally—quietly at first—that Marcus’s “eighteen percent over projections” had been propped up by reclassified deals and delayed churn reporting.
Employees who’d been pressured to “make the numbers work” were interviewed—protected, not punished.
Two weeks later, Harmon formally issued notice.
The stock dipped fast.
Then Jennifer held a short press call, clean and direct: “We anticipated this. We’re funded. We’re restructuring sales. No layoffs.”
The stock steadied by the close.
Inside the office, people whispered the same sentence in the elevators.
“She actually meant it.”
One month after Marcus fired the “temp,” he sat in a small conference room at an employment attorney’s office, staring at a printed headline.
MERIDIAN VP TERMINATED FOR CAUSE; COMPANY REPORTS INTERNAL INVESTIGATION
His lawyer said, “They’re contesting unemployment, Marcus.”
Marcus stared at the paper, voice hollow. “They can’t do that.”
“They can,” the lawyer said, flipping pages. “You were terminated for cause with documentation. It’s… extensive.”
Marcus swallowed. “What about my severance?”
The lawyer didn’t soften it. “Severance is for people who leave clean.”
Marcus’s phone buzzed with a notification he couldn’t ignore.
A recruiter email—automated.
We’ve decided to move forward with other candidates.
Marcus exhaled through his nose, like it physically hurt.
Back at Meridian, Jennifer walked the sales floor with the interim VP she’d appointed that same day.
No speeches. No slogans.
Just one promise repeated face-to-face.
“We’re not doing fear-based numbers anymore,” Jennifer told the team. “If a deal is shaky, we say it’s shaky.”
One rep blinked like she didn’t trust it. “And we don’t get punished for being honest?”
Jennifer held her gaze. “You get punished for lying. That’s the new rule.”
That Friday, Jennifer returned to the same boardroom.
Same glass walls. Same view. Same long table.
But the energy was different—less performance, more work.
Richard handed her a folder. “Audit firm is engaged. Compensation changes are drafted.”
Jennifer nodded. “Good.”
He hesitated. “I should’ve caught it.”
Jennifer didn’t gloat. “You should’ve listened sooner.”
Richard gave a small, grim smile. “Noted.”
Jennifer slid her yellow legal pad into her bag.
As she stood to leave, a director said, “Ms. Morrison… what made you come in undercover?”
Jennifer paused at the door. “Because I wanted to see who would tell the truth to someone they thought didn’t matter.”
She looked back at the empty chair where Marcus had sat.
“And now,” she said, voice steady, “the people who tell the truth are the ones who stay.”
She left the room with the board finally facing reality—and the man who tried to silence her facing consequences he couldn’t spin away.
