Chapter 6: The Call from Marcus
Victor looked at the phone for two full rings.
Then he picked it up.
"Marcus."
"Victor." The voice on the other end was careful.
Measured.
The voice of a man who had prepared for this call.
"I think we need to talk."
"It's midnight."
"I know what time it is." A pause.
"Serena called me."
"I assumed she would."
"She said you found the drive."
"I did."
Another pause.
Longer this time.
Victor could hear traffic faintly in the background — Marcus was in a car, or near a window, somewhere with the city still moving around him.
"Victor, I want you to understand that what's on that drive—"
"Four million in transfers, Marcus.
Eighteen months of emails.
And a woman you put in my house who hurt my son." Victor's voice didn't rise.
"What exactly do you want me to understand?"
The silence on the other end was different from Serena's silences.
Hers had been calculating.
This one sounded, for just a moment, like something that had been held for a long time and was now very tired.
"I didn't know about the boy," Marcus said.
"Don't."
"I'm telling you the truth.
The arrangement with Serena was financial.
She was supposed to get close to you, get access to the accounts, and we would move the money over eighteen months in amounts small enough not to trigger—" He stopped.
"I didn't tell her to touch the child.
That wasn't part of anything."
"But you knew she was doing it."
"I didn't know—"
"Rosa told me the staff had been silenced for months," Victor said.
"Someone was making sure those people didn't talk.
That wasn't Serena acting alone.
She doesn't know this house well enough.
She doesn't know which staff members to pressure and which ones to leave alone." He paused.
"You've been to this house forty times, Marcus.
You know every person who works here by name."
The silence that followed confirmed it more completely than any words could have.
"It got out of hand," Marcus said finally.
"I want you to know that I—"
"I don't want to know what you want me to know," Victor said.
"I want to know about Singapore."
A beat.
"What about it?"
"Serena said you have documents.
She said if I moved against her, you'd release them to regulators."
"That was always a last resort.
A protection measure."
"Are you going to use it?"
Marcus was quiet for a long time.
Long enough that Victor moved to the window and stood looking out at the dark front drive.
"No," Marcus said at last.
"I'm not."
"Why not?"
"Because—" Another pause.
"Because I've known you for nine years.
And because what I did was wrong.
And because I don't think destroying you publicly makes any of that less wrong." His voice had changed — the preparation had gone out of it.
What was left sounded older.
"I'm not a good person, Victor.
I think we both know that.
But I'm not that person."
Victor said nothing.
"I'll transfer the Singapore documents to Richard Chen tonight," Marcus said.
"Everything I have.
You can use them however you need to.
I won't fight it."
"You understand what that means for you."
"Yes."
"Your position.
The Asia contracts.
The Meridian partnership."
"Yes.
I understand."
Victor turned away from the window.
Daniel was watching him from across the room, the laptop still open, the drive still sitting beside it.
"Why?" Victor said.
"Why do it at all?
You had everything.
Nine years of everything."
Marcus let out a slow breath.
"Serena is very convincing," he said.
"And I was greedy.
And I told myself it was just money — that you'd never notice, that it wouldn't hurt anyone." He paused.
"I didn't think about the boy.
I should have.
That's the part I'll carry."
Victor closed his eyes for a moment.
"I'll have Richard contact you in the morning," he said.
"I know."
"Don't leave the country, Marcus."
"I won't."
Victor ended the call.
He set the phone down on the windowsill and stood there for a moment with his hand still resting on it.
"He's going to cooperate?" Daniel asked.
"He says so."
"Do you believe him?"
Victor picked up the phone and turned around.
"I believe he's scared," he said.
"And I believe he's tired.
Whether that's the same as cooperating, Richard will find out."
He looked at the drive on the table.
"Get that to Richard tonight," he said.
"Along with the recorder, the discharge summary, and written statements from Rosa and Lily if they're willing."
"They'll be willing," Rosa said from her chair.
She said it quietly and without hesitation, the way a person states a fact they have known for a long time.
Victor looked at her.
"Thank you," he said.
"For not staying quiet."
Rosa picked up her teacup.
"I stayed quiet too long already," she said.
"We all did.
We were afraid." She looked at the table.
"I'm sorry for that, sir.
I'm sorry it took this long."
Victor shook his head slowly.
"She made sure you were afraid.
That's on her."
He walked toward the hallway.
"I'm going to check on Ethan," he said.
"Daniel — tonight.
Everything to Richard tonight."
"Already sending," Daniel said, his eyes on the screen.
Victor walked down the hallway.
The house was quiet.
The marble floor that had been a crime scene two hours ago was just a floor again — cold and pale and ordinary under the low lights.
He stopped outside Ethan's door.
It was open a few inches.
He pushed it gently.
Lily was asleep in the chair beside the crib.
She had not meant to fall asleep — her head was resting at an angle that would hurt in the morning, and one hand was still loosely curled on the armrest as though she had been holding something and let it go.
Ethan was on his back in the crib, arms wide, breathing the deep even breath of a child who felt safe.
Victor stood in the doorway for a long time.
Then he went and found a blanket and draped it carefully over Lily's shoulders without waking her.
He sat down in the other chair — the one he used to use when Ethan was a newborn and sleep was something that happened in fragments — and he stayed there until the light outside the window began, very slowly, to change.
His phone buzzed once on his knee.
A message from Richard Chen: *Got everything.
We move in the morning.
Don't contact Marcus again tonight.*
Victor turned the phone face-down.
May you like
He looked at his son sleeping.
He stayed.
