He answered, "Frank. Hey, it's Saturday. What's his face changed? " Nathan went very still and Victoria watching felt her stomach drop because she knew that stillness she'd felt it herself an hour ago in the bathroom. Say that again," Nathan said quietly. "Slow. " He listened.
His jaw worked. His eyes came up and found Victoria's. And there was something in them now. Something careful and grim. Who told you to call me on a Saturday to tell me that Frank?
A pause. No. No. I'm asking you a real question. Somebody told you to make this call today.
Who was it? Another pause. Nathan's knuckles went white around the phone. Yeah, okay. That's what I thought.
No, I'm not mad at you, Frank. You're just the messenger. I'll Yeah, Monday. I understand. He hung up.
Lily was 10 ft ahead, spinning in a circle with her arms out, singing to herself, gloriously unaware. Nathan, Victoria said. What was that? That Nathan said was my supervisor calling on a Saturday, which he has never done in 3 years to tell me that there's been a complaint, that I've been seen behaving inappropriately with a member of executive leadership, that there's going to be a review Monday morning, and that until the review, I'm suspended without pay. He looked at her, and when I asked him who told him to make the call today on a Saturday, before I'd even been back to work, he got real quiet.
And then he said the request came down from outside the building from a name he wasn't supposed to say. The color had drained out of Victoria's face. "Adrien, he works fast," Nathan said. "Give him that. It's not even been 3 hours since you hung up on him, and he's already found the maintenance truck, already found my name, already made a phone call to the one thing he figured he could take from me. " Nathan looked at his daughter spinning in the parking lot, and his voice went very low and very hard.
He wants to make me small, Victoria. That's the game, right? That's the whole game. Make the man small. Show you what happens to people who get in your ear.
Victoria's hands had curled into fists at her sides. The terror from the bathroom was gone. Something else had replaced it. Something colder and older and much more dangerous. The scared little girl who'd built a fortress was gone.