The Billionaire Firefighter

Chapter 12: The Recording

Derek set the pen down on the table.

The committee chair looked at it, then at Derek, then at Page whose hand was still open, still waiting, as if the situation might somehow reverse itself if he just held the position long enough.

It didn't.

"Before anyone signs anything," Derek said, "I'd like to know who told this committee that Jacob West's donation was conditional on my dismissal."

The room shifted.

The committee chair turned to Page. "Chief Page. Is that accurate? Was the donation explicitly conditional?"

Page straightened in his chair. "That was the understanding communicated to us—"

"By whom?"

Page glanced toward the back of the room. Christian stood very still.

It was Christian who recovered first. He stepped forward, abandoning the wall, abandoning the performance of being merely an observer.

"The donation condition is not the central issue," he said. His voice was controlled, almost reasonable. "Derek Moss violated field regulations. That fact doesn't change based on who his father turns out to be. A legitimate institution must maintain discipline regardless of a firefighter's personal identity or connections."

He reached into the folder he'd carried in and placed a document on the table.

"Furthermore," Christian said, "the committee should be aware that the department received an official spousal welfare statement before the Los Vangees deployment. Signed by Derek Moss's own wife. She warned us in advance that Derek was experiencing severe emotional instability and was prone to high-risk decision-making." He looked around the room. "We didn't manufacture these concerns. His own family flagged them."

Fae stepped forward.

Her voice was quiet but it carried to every corner of the room.

"Erin Chase-Moss was in a hotel room with another man the same night Derek was called to that fire. Derek pulled both of them out of a burning building and took a beam across his leg doing it. She submitted that statement not out of concern for public safety — but because she was afraid Derek would expose what she'd done." Fae looked at the committee chair directly. "That document is personal retaliation dressed as a welfare report. It has no credibility."

The silence that followed was the kind that meant something had just changed and everyone in the room knew it.

Brett, standing near the side wall, had gone very still. His eyes moved to Derek just briefly and something in his expression shifted. He hadn't known. Not that part.

The committee chair set the spousal statement aside.

"Then let's talk about what actually happened inside that building," he said.

Fae nodded and connected her phone to the room's display system. A video call opened — a man in a white coat, seated in what was clearly a hospital office, who introduced himself as Jacob West's attending physician.

The doctor spoke precisely. He had reviewed the full incident report — temperature readings, smoke concentration data, structural collapse timeline. His conclusion was unambiguous. At the point Derek entered the study, Jacob West had a survival window of no more than three minutes in his current position. Smoke concentration alone would have been fatal within that margin.

A structural rescue team, the doctor continued, operating under standard protocol establishing supports, deploying hydraulic equipment, clearing the debris field safely would have required a minimum of ten minutes to reach Jacob.

"Without Firefighter Moss's intervention," the doctor said, "Mr. West would not have survived."

The call ended.

Christian's jaw was tight. He looked at the documents in front of him, then at the committee, then at the door, a calculation happening behind his eyes that everyone in the room could see.

He picked up his folder.

"This meeting has strayed significantly from its original purpose—"

"Sit down, Deputy Captain."

Christian stopped.

Victor stepped forward and placed a tablet on the table. He turned it toward the committee chair.

"This audio was retrieved from the independent backup system of the Los Vangees County Wildfire Unified Command Center," Victor said. "During cross-county mutual aid operations, all critical command channel communications are automatically archived by the receiving county's system. Deputy Captain Browning may have been able to modify the summary report held by his own department. He could not modify records stored by another county."

He pressed play.

The audio was grainy, compressed by distance and radio static. But the voice was clear enough. Christian's voice, captured mid-operation, saying that he didn't want to be held responsible for whatever happened inside that building. That everyone needed to follow formal procedure. That if the people inside didn't make it, that was the outcome, it wasn't worth any of them risking their positions over it.

The room was completely silent when it ended.

Christian's face had gone the color of old ash.

Page moved quickly. He sat forward and arranged his expression into something that resembled principled outrage, the look of a man who had been deceived by someone he trusted.

"If Deputy Captain Browning deleted original radio records, misled this department's senior leadership, and fabricated a donation condition to remove a firefighter he had a personal grievance against—" Page shook his head slowly. "He has done serious damage to the reputation of this institution. That cannot stand."

He turned to the committee chair.

"I am ordering Deputy Captain Christian Browning and Administrative Officer Zack Reed suspended immediately, pending a full internal investigation."

Christian went rigid and his face went cold.

For a moment he said nothing. Then he turned not toward Page, not toward Derek, but toward Brett, a ruthless glint in his eyes. 

"Holland was the senior officer responsible for the rescue operation," Christian said. His voice had dropped to something harder and more deliberate. "Everything that happened at that villa falls under his command authority. If anyone should be bearing responsibility for what occurred, it's him."

Brett looked at Christian for a long moment, it was so obvious that anger and fury was burning in his eyes, he almost let out a loose laugh.

He had come into this room intending to stay out of it. He had spent years staying out of it watching, knowing, saying nothing, because saying something had never felt like it would change anything. Some may call him cowardly but he had always thought himself to be calculative 

That calculation had just changed.

Brett uncrossed his arms and stepped forward. He hardened his face, in his mind, he has decided to go all out regardless of the consequences