So I opened my laptop and showed Grant the original analysis — the one with the risk flags, the one I’d sent him weeks before I was fired. I showed him the edited version side by side. I showed him the email thread where I’d flagged the Castellin risk in writing. And I showed him the timestamps, which told a story no amount of “restructuring” could explain.
His face changed. The wine stayed unopened.
Here’s what I want you to understand about that moment: I didn’t threaten him. I didn’t raise my voice. I didn’t have to. The documents did the talking, and the documents had no interest in being aligned.
Grant left my apartment that night with the bottle of wine still in his hand and a look on his face I won’t forget. Not fear, exactly. Recognition. The recognition that the person he’d decided was disposable had turned out to be the only person holding the receipts.