"So here's where we are," Travis said. "If I walk away, you lose everything, which I won't pretend I'd lose sleep over. But 62 people who never insulted me, who never even met me, lose everything, too."
"And I would lose sleep over that. I've been one of those 62 people. I've gotten the call that says, 'Don't come in Monday. There's no Monday.'"
He looked at the Harley. "So I'm not going to punish them for your sins. That's not justice. That's just me being as careless with people's lives as you've been."
A flicker of hope crossed Ethan's face. "But I'm also not going to hand you back the keys to a company so you can do it all over again," Travis continued. "So here's what's going to happen. And it's not a negotiation."
"You don't get to counter. You nod, or you walk into the fire Monday morning." "Anything," Ethan breathed. "Anything. Yes."
"I'm going to sign it," Travis said. "Reed Capital acquires Whitmore Holdings. The employees keep their jobs, every one of them. And the 11 you laid off last spring get offered their jobs back at a raise."
"The buildings stay. The company survives." He let that hang for one second, just long enough for relief to start flooding Ethan's face, and then he took it away. "And you, Ethan, are out."
"Completely out. You don't run it. You don't sit on the board. You don't have an office."
"Your name comes off the building by Friday. Reed Capital owns 100% and installs new management. You walk away with your personal guarantees released. Your houses, your cars, you keep those because your wife shouldn't be on the street for your mistakes."
"But you walk away with no company and no title and no power over a single human being who works there ever again." Ethan's mouth worked. "You... You'd buy the company but cut me out completely?" "That's right."
"But it's my company. I built it. My name is on it." "You built it on debt, and you ran it into the ground, and you treated the people who run the place better than you do like furniture," Travis said flatly.
"You didn't build a company. You built a costume. A costume that says successful businessman. And you wore it everywhere around so people would look at you the way you wanted to be looked at."
"And the second somebody didn't play along—" He tapped his own chest. "—you couldn't stand it. The company was never the point, Ethan. The applause was the point, and I'm taking away the applause."
The cruelty of it, the precision of it, landed on Ethan harder than any threat of bankruptcy. Because Travis had seen straight through to the thing Ethan had never admitted even to himself. He didn't love the company. He loved being the man who owned it.