At the end of the two hours, James did something I did not expect. He apologized. Not a corporate apology — a real one. He said he had made a catastrophic mistake by hiring Ethan, a worse mistake by defending him, and the worst mistake by letting it go on long enough to lose the entire engineering team in a single morning. He said he did not blame me. He said, in a voice that was more honest than I had heard him use in four years, that he should have fired Ethan eight months ago when I first escalated. He asked if there was any way to salvage it.

I told him, gently, that there was not. My six engineers had already started their new jobs that morning at 9 AM. The ink on the offer letters was dry. The new company had already sent internal announcements. James nodded. He paid the bill. He shook my hand. He said, "I hope you'll let me buy you coffee again in six months." I said I would. That afternoon, James fired Ethan. The engineering team was gutted. The company survived, barely. They had to delay a product launch by nine months.