We don't sit here and let Friday come. We move first. Move. How? First thing tomorrow, you and me go to legal aid.
There's a domestic violence advocacy center downtown. I know it. I used to work with them. What Damon's doing has a name and the name is extortion. And there are people whose entire job is exactly this.
We get it documented. Every text, every threat. The one tonight especially. Sign or I ruin you. That's a confession, Sophia.
He put it in writing. That's the stupidest thing a man in his position could possibly do. and he did it because he thinks you're too scared to ever use it. Sophia was staring at him, hope and fear fighting on her face. And the pictures, there's laws now, real ones about sharing private images to threaten somebody. It's not the old days.
What he's holding over you isn't a weapon anymore. It's evidence, evidence of a crime he's threatening to commit. The second we document that he's using them as leverage, they stop being his power and start being his prison. Marcus' jaw set. We flip it.
We take the exact thing he thinks makes him strong and we make it the thing that puts him away. Sophia opened her mouth, closed it. You really think that would work? She said, "I've seen it work. I've also seen it not work because the woman was too scared to move and she waited and she signed and the man had her forever."
He looked at her hard. The only version where you lose Sophia is the version where you do nothing. every other version. You've got a shot. And I'm telling you, as somebody who did this for a living, you've got a good shot. He got greedy.
He put it in writing. He picked a fight with a woman who's not as alone as he thinks. For a long moment, Sophia didn't say anything. She stared into her coffee. And Marcus let her sit with it because he knew this part couldn't be rushed.
You could hand a person the way out, but you couldn't walk them through the door. They had to pick up their own feet. Finally, she looked up. Tomorrow, she said the center. You'll come with me.
I'll come with you. You have Lily and your work, and Renee can take Lily. My work will keep. Marcus reached across the table and for the first time deliberately put his hand over hers. Sophia, look at me.
Tomorrow morning, 9:00, I'm picking you up and we're going down there together. And you are going to tell your story to somebody whose whole job is to help you fight this. And I'm going to be sitting right next to you the whole time. Okay. She looked at his hand on hers.
Okay. She whispered. Say it like you believe it. I don't believe it yet. That's all right.
He squeezed her hand. I'll believe it for both of us till you catch up. And something in her face broke open some last held thing and she turned her hand over under his. So they were palm to palm and she held on. The next morning at 9 sharp Marcus was outside her apartment.
Sophia came down looking like she hadn't slept because she hadn't. and she got in the truck and she was quiet the whole way downtown, her knee bouncing the same way his had bounced the night before on the way to the hospital. Marcus recognized it. He didn't try to talk her out of the fear. He just drove steady and once at a red light he reached over and put his hand on her bouncing knee briefly and said, "Breathe." And she breathed and he took his hand back and drove on.
The advocacy center was in an old brick building he knew well, though he hadn't set foot in it in three years. Walking through those doors put a strange weight in his chest. The last time he'd been here, he'd been a different man with a badge and a gun and a whole life he'd since burned down to the ground. Now he was a handyman in work boots holding the door for a woman he'd known 5 days. The woman who came out to meet them was named Denise, and she was maybe 60, with reading glasses on a chain, and the calm, unflapable manner of somebody who'd heard every terrible story there was, and had long ago decided none of them would knock her off her feet.
She looked at Marcus and stopped. "Well, I'll be," Denise said. "Marcus Carter?" Marcus went still. "Denise?"
They said a Marcus was bringing somebody in. I thought no, couldn't be. Been what? Three years about that. You look She studied him over the glasses.
You look better than the last time I saw you. Last time I saw you, you looked like a man who'd been hit by a train. I had been, Marcus said quietly. Sophia was looking between them, and Marcus could feel the question forming on her face. The same question from the night before.
What happened the day you couldn't fix it? And he wasn't ready for it. Not here. Not now. So he stepped forward.
Denise, this is Sophia. She's got a situation. Exartner financial abuse. And now he's threatening to release private images if she doesn't sign a release absolving him of the debt. He gave her a Friday deadline.
He put the threat in writing last night. Denise's whole demeanor shifted. The warmth stayed, but under it something professional and sharp clicked into place, and she looked at Sophia with the focused attention of someone whose job had just started. in writing. Denise said he texted you a threat last night. Sophia said Marcus saw it.
Do you still have it? You didn't delete it. I Sophia looked at Marcus. She still got it. Marcus said I told her not to touch it.
Denise looked at Marcus and something passed over her face. Something almost like pride. Of course you did. Some things you don't forget. She turned back to Sophia and gestured toward a door.
Come on back, sweetheart. Both of you. Let's talk. They went back. For the next two hours, Sophia told her whole story and Denise listened and took notes and asked questions.
And Marcus sat beside Sophia and said nothing unless she looked at him. And every time she looked at him, he nodded. Keep going. You're doing fine. And slowly as Sophia talked, Marcus watched something happen that he'd seen happen before in this very building years ago.
To other women, he watched the story stop being a thing that was happening to her and start being a thing she was telling. And the difference was everything. A thing that happens to you owns you. A thing you can tell you've got some power over. When Sophia finished, Denise took off her reading glasses and set them down.
Okay. She said, "First thing, what he's doing is a crime, extortion. And what he's threatening sharing those images to coersse you, that's a separate crime. And George's got specific statutes on it now. You understand what that means?
That I could press charges. It means the ground you're standing on is a lot more solid than he's led you to believe." Denise leaned forward. Here's what he's counting on. He's counting on you thinking this is about a debt and a breakup and your embarrassment.
Private, personal, your fault somehow. That's the story he's sold you and you've been living inside it for 2 months. But it's not that story. It's a crime story. He's a man committing a crime against you in writing with a deadline.
And when you look at it that way, everything changes because now it's not your shame he's holding. It's his own confession. Sophia's breath caught. That's what Marcus said," she whispered. Denise glanced at Marcus.
"Well," she said. Marcus knows what he's talking about. And there it was again. That door, that thing unsaid, and Sophia's eyes went to Marcus, and Marcus felt it coming, and he stood up. "I need some air," he said too quickly.