His hand stayed exactly where it was.
Extended.
Open.
Waiting.
Richard took half a step back.
Looked over his shoulder at Douglas Crane.
Douglas was sitting rigid in his chair.
His face had gone the color of old paper.
"Douglas."
Richard's voice was flat.
Cold.
"Did you really invite this man into my building without telling me what he looked like?"
Douglas opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
Richard turned back to Harold.
"Let me make something very clear to you. I've built this company from the ground up. 22 years. Every client, every contract, every dollar, mine. And I decide who sits at this table."
He leaned in.
Close.
Too close.
Harold could smell his cologne.
Something expensive.
Something designed to remind everyone in the room who had money and who didn't.
"And you," Richard said, his voice dropping lower, "are not the kind of person who sits at this table."
The room was frozen.
12 executives.
12 people with law degrees, MBAs, corner offices, and six-figure salaries.
Not one of them moved.
Not one of them spoke.
Not one of them so much as shifted in a chair.
Harold lowered his hand.
Slowly.
He reached for his folder and opened it.
"If you'll give me 5 minutes, I can walk you through the investment structure. The numbers are..."
Richard slapped the folder shut.
The sound cracked through the silence like a gunshot.
Papers scattered across the table.
Spreadsheets.
Charts.
Four months of work sliding across polished mahogany like they meant nothing.
"I said I don't want to hear it. Not from you. Not today. Not ever."
Harold looked at the papers on the table.
He didn't rush.
He reached for the first page.
Picked it up.
Smoothed it with his palm.
Set it in a neat pile.
Then the next page.
And the next.
One by one.
In silence.
While 12 people watched and nobody helped.
Richard watched, too.
Arms crossed.
Head tilted.
The posture of a man watching something he considered beneath him do something mildly interesting.
"You know what your problem is?" Richard said.
"You people always think you can just show up. Just walk in. Just stand in rooms you weren't built for and pretend like the world owes you something."
You people.
The words hung in the air like smoke that wouldn't clear.
Harold kept picking up his papers.
Page by page.
Corner to corner.
He stacked them neatly.
Tapped the edges against the table to align them.
Placed them back inside the leather folder.
The cracked $40 leather folder that held 62 pages of brilliance nobody in this room would ever read.
"Are you done?" Richard said.
Harold closed the folder.
He looked at Richard.
Not with anger.
Not with shame.
With something far more unsettling.
Calm.
Complete.
Absolute.
Unshakable calm.
"Yes, sir," Harold said. "I believe I am."
He turned toward the door.