"Xavier Dorne, please, try to reconsider this decision. Our Voss consolidated will bring great return, surely you have read the documents they promis—"
"Harlen." Xavier set his pen slowly on the table, then continued, "You flew from Geneva. You brought four people, and you've been talking for about twenty minutes." he tilted his head. "And the best word you landed on was promise?"
Xavier Dorne, who was Xavier, the 22-year-old who had inherited his father's trillion-dollar business that could impact the future of 19 countries, controlled the price of oil in three continents, had world leaders on speed dial, and hadn't once broken a sweat doing it.
"Documents don't promise anything, Harlan. Numbers do. And quite frankly, yours don't.
The analyst across the table leaned forward, confident. "With respect, the numbers you're referencing don't account for the compounding effect on the backend returns, which actually puts the real figure closer to—"
Xavier didn't even look at him.
"Nadia."
"Their debt-to-equity ratio is one point four seven," Nadia said quietly from his right. "Up from one point one two last year. The real build cost of Meridian is sixtythree billion. Not forty."
The analyst sat back.
Xavier finally looked at him. Just for a second. Then looked away again like the conversation had already ended.
That's when Voss leaned forward.
He didn't look rattled. Xavier noticed that. A lesser man would have been rattled. Voss just smiled — slow, patient, the smile of someone who had been in a hundred rooms like this one and lost very few of them.
"Your numbers are correct," Voss said. "I won't insult you by denying that." He paused. "But numbers aren't why I'm here Xavier." His voice dropped a level. "I'm here because your father understood something you're still too young to see yet."
The room went very still.
Voss clasped his hands on the table.
"You know what Warren Buffett said?" He didn't wait for an answer. "He said — it's only when the tide goes out that you learn who's been swimming naked." He let it sit. "Xavier, the tide is going out. Your father just passed. The markets are watching. Investors are watching. And right now, today, in this room — you have the chance to make sure the world sees the Dorne Group standing fully clothed next to the biggest name in global infrastructure." He spread his hands. "That's not a business deal. That's a legacy."
The room nodded. Even Crest looked satisfied. Even the analyst who had just been embarrassed was sitting up straighter.
Xavier looked at Voss for a long moment.
"Anchoring," he said quietly.
Voss blinked. "Excuse me?"
"That's what that technique is called." Xavier leaned forward for the first time. "You throw a Buffett quote into the room so everything I say after sounds like I'm arguing against Warren Buffett and not against you." He tilted his head. "Smart. Most people don't catch it." He paused. "Buffett also said never invest in a business you cannot understand. And I don't think even you fully understand what sixty-three billion dollars in four unstable markets actually looks like when it goes wrong."
Dead silence.
Then the chair on the left side of Xavier scraped forward. It was his brother Eilan.
"Okay." His voice was firm. Controlled. The most decisive Xavier had ever heard him sound. "Let's just — take a breath."
He looked between both men. "Xavier, hear me out. Because I actually think Harlan has a point and I've done the math myself."
He opened his folder. Actually opened it this time.
"If we look at the Meridian corridor purely from a decade-long position — our energy division alone expands into three new markets. That's a projected forty-two billion in new revenue streams, completely independent of the partnership returns."
He turned to Xavier directly.
"We're not saving sixty three billion by walking away. We're leaving forty two on the table. And that's before we even touch what this does for our infrastructure leverage in Southeast Asia."
The room shifted.
Even Nadia glanced up.
Xavier looked at his brother.
For the first time in the entire meeting — he didn't have an immediate answer.
Elian continued.
"And that's not all."
He turned the folder page.
"Our current position in those four markets is passive. We have money there but no real presence, no influence, no say in how those economies move. You know what that means?"
He looked at Xavier.
"It means we're passengers. Right now today the Dorne Group with all its power, all its reach and all its money — is sitting in the back seat in four of the fastest growing economies in the world."
He tapped the table.
"This deal doesn't just give us returns, Xavier. It gives us a seat at the wheel. And once we have that seat nobody i mean nobody, not even the government, can move in those markets without coming through us first."
He sat back.
"Dad didn't build this company to sit in the back seat. And I don't think you want to either."
The room was quiet.
Voss was nodding slowly. Even Nadie had looked up from her notes.
Elian had done something nobody in that room had managed to do in the last forty minutes.
He had made Xavier Dorne pause.
With a smug face, Elian then said, "Come on X, tell me what you thin—"
"Nonsense."
The word landed like a stone dropping into still water.
Elian blinked. "Excuse me—"
"Every single thing you just said." Xavier sat forward slowly. "Nonsense." He looked at the folder in front of his brother. "You said we're passengers in those four markets. That's correct. You know why we're passengers?" He didn't wait. "Because we chose to be. Deliberately, Strategically. Because those four markets have a combined political instability index that has averaged thirty one percent over the last decade." He let that number sit. "Meaning nearly one in three years something goes catastrophically wrong. A government collapses. A currency crashes. A war starts. And you want us to plant sixty three billion dollars in the ground there and call it a seat at the wheel."
Elian opened his mouth.
Xavier wasn't finished.
"You said dad didn't build this company to sit in the back seat." His voice stayed completely calm. "Dad also didn't build this company by confusing influence with exposure. There is a difference between having power in a market and being trapped in one. What you're describing isn't a seat at the wheel Eli." He paused. "It's a hostage situation with better branding."
The analyst who had been nodding along thirty seconds ago was now looking at the table.
Voss had gone very still.
"The forty two billion in projected revenue from our energy division."
Xavier turned his folder over and slid it across to Elian.
"Page nine. Our own internal projections already account for Southeast Asian expansion independently. Without Meridian. Without Voss. Without a single dollar of shared risk."
He tapped the page.
"Meaning the number you just used to argue for this deal is already in our pipeline without it."
Elian looked down at the page.
His face changed.
"The seat at the wheel argument only works," Xavier continued, "if we actually need someone to hand it to us. We don't, We never did." He finally looked away from his brother and turned to the room, Voss, Crest, the analysts, Sato, all of them, one slow look that moved across the table like a closing door.
Xaveir glanced at them, waiting for another objection, but they were all too still
"Mister Voss." His voice was perfectly level. Perfectly polite. "This deal clearly won't work. As the head of the Dorne Group, my answer is no."
He picked up his phone.
Nobody said a word.
Not Voss. Not Crest. Not the analyst. Not Elian, who was still looking at page nine with an expression that had nowhere left to go.
Xavier buttoned his jacket and walked out.
The door clicked shut behind Xavier.
The room stayed quiet for a moment. The kind of quiet that follows something that cannot be taken back.
Voss leaned back in his chair slowly. His team was already exchanging glances Crest gathering his papers, the analysts closing their laptops, the silent language of people who know a meeting is over.
Elian stood up.
"Mister Voss." His voice was calm. Composed. Nothing like the man who had just been embarrassed in front of a room full of people. "I apologise for that." He straightened his jacket. "My brother is... thorough. He doesn't move until he is certain."
Voss looked at him for a long moment. Reading him.
"And are you certain?" Voss asked.
Elian held his gaze. "I think there is still something worth discussing here. We will continue the negotiations another day."
Voss studied him for one more second. Then nodded once.
"Another day then," Voss said.
Elian nodded back and walked out.
Meanwhile, Xavier was already halfway down the hall, not a single thing about him suggesting he had just ended a forty billion dollar deal without blinking. His phone buzzed in his pocket. ringtone cutting through the silence in the air. He pulled it out, glanced at the screen, and the corner of his mouth lifted.
He answered.
"Amara."
"Xavi!, where have you been? I've been calling you all morning."
Xavier chulked.
"I was in a meeting."
"You're always in a meeting."
He could practically hear her pout through the line, her lower lip sticking out.
"I run a trillion dollar company."
"And yet you never have time for me, huh. Explain that."
Xavier almost smiled. "What do you want Amara."
"Tonight. You. Onyx. Do not say your busy."
"You mean the Onxy club in downto—"
"YES, I MEAN THAT CLUB! Dum dum. So ahh, what do you think?"
"I'm not sur—"
"Xavier Dorne if you say you're busy, I will never speak to you again."
He reached the elevator. Pressed the button. The doors opened immediately — like even the building knew better than to keep him waiting.
With a huge sigh, he responded
"I'll be there as soon as i can." he said.
"I knew it. I love you."
"I love you too."
"See you tonight X."
He hung up just as he was steping inside he heard his brother call out
"Xavier what a mintute!"
Xavier's smile faded the moment he saw him.
Not slowly. Just gone. Like a light switching off.
He stepped inside and held the door open without a word. Elian walked in, and the doors closed behind them.
And then there was silence.
Just two brothers standing side by side in a box of steel and glass dropping forty two floors, and the kind of silence that had too much inside it to be comfortable.
The floors ticked down on the small screen above the doors. Forty one. Forty. Thirty nine.
Elian was staring straight ahead. Jaw tight. Xavier had his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the doors and the expression on his face was the one he wore when he had already moved on from something and was waiting for the world to catch up.
Thirty five. Thirty four.
It felt like hours.
It had been maybe ninety seconds.
Elian broke first.
"You know—" he started. Then stopped. Like he had three different things to say and none of them were the right one. He exhaled through his nose. Tried again.
"That was unnecessary."
Xaveir rubbed his eyebrow; he could already feel the headache coming on.