Chapter 7: What Marcus Said
They brought her into a side room to rest while the statements were being taken.
Someone had found a chair with a cushion.
Someone else had brought tea she hadn't asked for.
She sat with both hands around the cup and listened to the building settle around her — footsteps, distant voices, the sound of a door closing firmly somewhere down the hall.
She was almost asleep when the door opened.
It wasn't Reeves.
It wasn't her father.
It was Marcus.
He had lost the jacket somewhere.
His shirt was untucked on one side.
He looked like a man who had been very powerful an hour ago and was only now beginning to understand that he wasn't anymore.
He closed the door behind him.
"You shouldn't be in here," she said.
"I know." He didn't move toward her.
He stayed near the door, like he understood that crossing the room would be a mistake.
"I just need five minutes."
"You don't get five minutes, Marcus."
"Nora —"
"You raised a belt over me." Her voice was steady.
"In front of five hundred people.
While I was seven months pregnant with your daughter." She set the cup down.
"Whatever you came in here to say, it won't be enough."
He was quiet for a moment.
When he spoke again, his voice was different — lower, stripped of the performance she had watched him maintain all evening.
"I didn't know about the judge," he said.
"I want you to know that.
The Aldiss arrangement — that was my mother.
I knew the custody filing was aggressive, but I didn't know she had —"
"Paid him."
"Yes."
"Or blackmailed him."
He went very still.
"What?"
"Your mother had leverage on Aldiss from a previous case.
She used it to guarantee the ruling." Nora watched his face.
"You didn't know that part."
"No," he said.
The word came out quietly, like something deflating.
"No, I didn't."
She believed him.
That was the worst part — she believed him, and it changed nothing.
"Marcus, even if I accept that you didn't know every detail of what your mother arranged — you knew the accounts were frozen.
You knew I'd lost my job.
You knew the house was being transferred.
You watched all of that happen and you said nothing." She stood up slowly.
"And then tonight you raised a belt over my back in public and called our daughter someone else's child."
He flinched.
"I panicked," he said.
"When the doors opened and I saw the investigators — I panicked and I said something I knew wasn't true because I wanted to —"
"Hurt me," she said.
"In front of as many people as possible.
Because if you couldn't finish what you started, you wanted to at least leave a mark."
He didn't deny it.
"I'm asking you," he said, "to let me talk to my daughter someday.
When she's old enough.
When all of this is —"
"That will be her choice," Nora said.
"Not mine, and not yours."
He looked at her for a long time.
"I did love you," he said.
"In the beginning.
I want you to know that."
"I know you did." She picked up her cup again.
"That's what made it so easy for your mother to use it against both of us."
He opened his mouth.
Closed it.
The door opened behind him.
Two investigators stood in the frame.
"Mr.
Harlan.
You need to come with us now."
Marcus looked at Nora one last time.
She met his eyes and held them, and did not look away, and did not say anything else.
He turned and walked out.
The door closed.
She sat back down.
Her hands were completely steady around the cup.
Outside in the corridor, she heard her father's voice asking where she was.
She heard Reeves answer.
She heard footsteps coming toward the door.
May you like
She had one quiet moment before they reached her.
She used it to breathe.
