Chapter 5: What Singapore Meant
Nobody spoke for a long moment.
Then Lily stood up.
"I'm going to put Ethan to bed," she said quietly.
Nobody stopped her.
She carried the sleeping boy out of the room, and her footsteps faded down the hall, and then it was just Victor and Daniel and Rosa and Serena and whatever Singapore meant.
"You should sit down," Serena said to Victor.
Almost gently.
"We should talk about this like adults."
"We are talking," Victor said.
"I mean privately." Her eyes moved to Daniel, then to Rosa.
"Without the audience."
"They stay."
Serena sighed.
She pulled out a chair and sat down herself, crossing her legs, setting her bag on the table in front of her like a boundary marker.
"Singapore was three years ago," she said.
"A contract dispute with a government infrastructure partner.
The way it was resolved was not entirely—" She paused.
"Conventional."
"I know what happened in Singapore," Victor said.
"I was there."
"Then you know that if Marcus decides to share certain documents with certain regulators, the conversation stops being about me and starts being about you." She folded her hands on the table.
"I'm not threatening you, Victor.
I'm explaining the situation.
There's a difference."
"There isn't," Victor said.
"Marcus has held onto those documents for three years," Serena continued.
"He never used them.
That was the arrangement — a kind of insurance policy.
He didn't need to use them as long as things were moving in the right direction." She looked at the laptop.
"This—" she gestured at it, "—is not the right direction."
Daniel had been very still.
Now he said, carefully: "What exactly is Marcus asking for?"
Serena looked at him as though she had forgotten he was capable of speech.
"Marcus isn't asking for anything," she said.
"I'm telling you what exists.
What you do with that information is your decision."
"So you came back," Victor said, "to warn me."
"I came back because I'm not stupid." For the first time, something real moved across her face — not warmth, but a kind of exhausted honesty.
"I know what's on that drive.
I know what it looks like.
I'm not going to pretend it looks good." She leaned forward slightly.
"But neither does Singapore.
So the question is what we both want to walk away from this with."
"I want my son safe," Victor said.
"Your son was never in danger from me."
The words landed in the room like something dropped from a height.
Rosa made a sound — small, involuntary — and pressed her hand over her mouth.
Victor looked at Serena for a long moment.
"The recording," he said.
"The discharge summary.
The four times Rosa witnessed it herself." His voice was completely level.
"You're going to sit in my house and tell me my son was never in danger."
Serena's jaw tightened.
"Children get hurt.
It happens.
I was under enormous pressure—"
"Don't."
"Victor—"
"I said don't." He stood up.
"You don't get to explain that.
Not in this house.
Not to me."
Serena stood too.
"Then we have a problem.
Because I am not walking out of here with nothing while you hand that drive to your attorney and act like your own hands are clean."
"What do you want?" Victor said flatly.
She looked at him.
"The engagement announcement goes forward.
We take three months.
Quietly.
At the end of three months we announce a mutual decision to part ways.
I receive the settlement outlined in our pre-engagement agreement.
Two million.
And the drive stays buried."
"And Marcus?"
"Marcus goes away.
I'll handle Marcus."
"You'll handle him," Victor repeated.
"Yes."
Victor looked at her for a long time.
Long enough that Serena's certainty began to develop a small crack in it — just at the edges, just visible.
"No," he said.
"Victor—"
"No." He picked up his phone.
"Daniel, call Richard.
Tell him it's urgent and tell him to bring whoever he needs for a financial crjme referral."
Serena's hand came down flat on the table.
"If you make that call, Marcus releases the Singapore documents by morning."
"Then he releases them."
She stared.
"You'd let that happen?
To your company?
To everything you've built?"
"I'd let it happen," Victor said, "before I'd let you stay in the same city as my son."
Something in Serena's face broke open — not into tears, but into something uglier.
The calculation dropped away and what was underneath was pure fury.
"You have no idea what I can do to you," she said.
"I have a reasonable idea," Victor said.
"Make the call, Daniel."
Daniel made the call.
Serena picked up her bag.
She looked at Victor one last time — and for just a moment, something flickered in her expression that might, in another life, have been regret.
"You'll regret this," she said.
"Maybe," Victor said.
"But not tonight."
She walked out.
This time, the side door locked behind her with a sound Victor made a note to have the locksmith address first thing in the morning.
Daniel was still on the phone, speaking quietly.
Rosa had sat down at the table and was staring at her untouched tea.
"Sir," she said softly.
"Singapore.
Is it very bad?"
Victor sat down.
He was quiet for a moment.
"It might be," he said honestly.
"I don't know yet."
Rosa nodded.
She wrapped both hands around her teacup.
"For what it's worth," she said, "I think you did the right thing."
Victor looked at her.
Then he looked at the hallway where Lily had carried Ethan to bed.
"I should have done it months ago," he said.
May you like
His phone lit up on the table between them.
The name on the screen was Marcus Hale.
