"Yes," she said. "You should have."
The silence between them was brief but specific. She felt him on the other end of the line, and she knew he was doing the thing he was learning to do — not defending, not explaining away, just being in what he had not done and waiting.
"I'm not going to make this into the larger thing," she said. "This is a piece of information you didn't pass on and you should have. We're going to deal with it."
"Zara—"
"I mean it. I'm not storing this up. I'm handling the problem first and then we are going to have an explicit conversation about information-sharing protocols, and it is going to be a boring conversation, and we are both going to have it and it is going to work." She pulled up the cap table on her screen. "Now. What does Vikram actually want?"
"He wants Altara out or he wants out himself."
"Can I replace his capital if he exits?"
"Yes. I know two funds that have been watching this space. If Vikram exits at pre-A terms, his stake is twelve percent. I can have it replaced in two weeks."
"Don't replace it with Meridian."
"I wasn't going to. There's a conflict there now and you know I know it." A pause. "Zara, I can make the introductions to the replacement funds but you should know that I'm doing it specifically because I failed to give you the Vikram-Samara information when I should have, and this is corrective, not generous."
She stopped. Sat back in her chair. She had been angry, managing the anger, moving through it toward the practical. What he had just said — the specific, precise honesty of it, the refusing to let himself off with a generous frame — cut through the management directly.
"That's new," she said quietly.
"I told you I was working on it," he said. Not proud. Just accurate.
"It's very new," she said. "Keep doing it."
"I intend to." A pause. "Are we okay?"
"We're working on it," she said. "Same as you."
