Then Adrien Cole laughed. But it was different now, thinner. And underneath the honey, there was something Marcus had heard exactly once before in the voice of a man on a job site who'd just realized the ground he was standing on wasn't solid. There was a crack of fear in it. "You have no idea," Adrien said softly. ""How many people owe me favors? "" "Maybe not," Marcus said.
But I know one thing you don't. "And what's that? " "None of them love you," Marcus said., "They're scared of you. That's a different thing. And the day you slip and you're going to slip, every last one of them is going to remember they never loved you at all. " He glanced at Victoria. I learned that from her.
It only took me one morning. And he hung up. The truck was silent except for the road. Victoria was looking at him like she'd never seen a human being before. He knew about the bank, she said finally, her voice hollow.
He knew about the Henderson roof. Marcus, he knew what time you got home last night. How does he? She stopped. Her face changed, drained.
Understood. "The only person who knew you were on the Henderson roof last night... " Marcus' stomach dropped through the floor of the truck. "Was Calvin? " he said. "Was Calvin? " Victoria whispered. "Calvin gave him your whole day.
Your schedule, your movements. That's how the SUV knew when to come at 4 in the morning. That's how Adrien knew about the roof. Your partner isn't just feeding Adrien information about the business, Marcus. He's feeding him information about you in real time.
Right now. Today, Marcus pulled the truck over to the shoulder of the road and put it in park because he could not drive and think about this at the same time. And the thing he was thinking about was the worst thing yet. Calvin knows my house, Marcus said slowly. Calvin's been to my house a 100 times.
Calvin knows the code to my back gate. Calvin knows. His voice broke. Calvin knows Ava. He's been to her birthday party.
She calls him Uncle Cal. Marcus, he held her when she was a baby Victoria. At Rene's funeral, he's in the pictures. He's got Ava on his hip because I couldn't. Marcus stared through the windshield at nothing.
And he's been selling all of it. Every piece of my life to that man. Marcus listened to me. Victoria took his face in both her hands and turned it toward her, and there was nothing careful in her anymore. Nothing of the shaking woman, just fierce and clear and present.
You cannot fall apart right now. I need you here. I've fallen apart for two weeks and it did not save me. What saved me was walking into that bank board. So, I need you to do what you told me to do this morning.
Give the fear a task. What's the task? Marcus closed his eyes, breathed. His wife's voice came to him from 5 years back. Panic never fixed a thing.
You fix a thing by picking up the first tool. "Ava," he said. "The task is Ava. " Yes, I get her out of Atlanta. He opened his eyes and they were clear again. My wife's sister lives up in Chattanooga.
90 minutes. Rene's mother can drive her up tonight. Tell Ava it's a surprise trip. Make it fun. Make it nothing.
She's out of the city before Sunday before Adrien or Calvin can use her as a chip. That's the task that comes first before the lawyer, before the proof, before any of it. She goes somewhere that boy has never heard of and never will. "Do it now," Victoria said. Call now, he called.
And Victoria watched Marcus Ellis talk to his mother-in-law in a warm, easy, lying voice, building a story about a fun surprise trip for Ava, keeping every drop of the terror out of it. And it was the same performance he'd given Calvin that morning. And she understood now that this was who he was, a man who could hold a mountain of fear behind his teeth. So the people he loved never felt its weight. When he hung up, he said, ""She's leaving tonight.
Ava will think it's a vacation. She'll be gone by 9. " "Good," Victoria said. ""Good. Now the second task. "" The lawyer, not just any lawyer. Victoria was already pulling the recorder out of the bag, turning it over in her hands. "I need someone Adrien can't buy and can't scare.
I know two. One of them Adrien had lunch with last month, so he's out. The other one, she hesitated. The other one is somebody I burned badly years ago when I was the woman Adrien's counting on everyone remembering. Cold, ruthless.
I fired her from a deal to save myself two points and I never looked back. "And you think she'll help you? " "I think," Victoria said slowly that she's the only lawyer in this city who is completely immune to being bought because the one thing she wants more than money is to watch me come crawling and admit I was wrong about her. A grim smile. So, I'm going to give her that. I'm going to walk into her office and hand her the most important case of her career and let her enjoy every second of me humbled and she'll take it.
Not for me to beat me. And that's fine. I don't need her to like me. I need her to win. Marcus looked at her for a long moment.
"You're a different person than the one who signs my checks. " He said, "No," Victoria said quietly. "I'm the same person. You're just the first man in 20 years who bothered to look at all of her instead of the parts that were useful to him. " She put the recorder back in the bag. ""Drive. We've got a daughter to hide and a lawyer to beg. In that order, he pulled back onto the road.
It was a little past 2:00 in the afternoon when they got back to the blue house. And the first thing Marcus did was walk the whole property front and back, check the gate, check the windows, check the street four times for the black SUV, which was not there, which somehow made it worse because now he knew that not seeing them meant nothing at all. Victoria spread the contents of the bag across the kitchen table, the folder, the envelope, the recorder. She was cataloging it, making a list the CEO fully back now when Marcus came in from the yard and said the thing that stopped her cold. "Play it," he said.
"What? " "The recording. Adrien and the bridge. I want to hear it. Marcus stood in the doorway with his arms crossed. I've been trusting your word all day, and your word's been good.
Every bit of it. But I just put my daughter in a car to another state and turned my whole life into a war. And before I go one more inch, I want to hear the man's actual voice say the actual words. Not because I don't believe you, because I need it in my own ears. Do you understand?
"I understand," Victoria said quietly. She picked up the recorder. Her thumb hovered over the button. And then she looked up at him and there was something new in her face. Something that hadn't been there through the bank or the phone call or any of it.