"Yes, he was making me feel like I couldn't run my own company without him holding my hand. And the reason he needed me doubting myself, the reason he needed me looking down at my feet, her voice was very steady and very quiet, which Marcus knew was the most dangerous she got. Was so I'd never look up and see what he was doing. That's my read, Marcus said. The emotional thing and the financial thing weren't two separate things.
They were the same thing. He needed you insecure to keep you from auditing him. The smaller he made you, the safer his skimm. And Victoria understood, then sitting in the dark office, the full architecture of what had been done to her. Nathan had told her the shape of it in the truck.
He keeps you looking down at your own feet, so you never look up and see the door. But he hadn't known there was money on the other side of it. He'd just seen the cruelty. Marcus had found the theft, and together the two of them, the maintenance man and the lawyer, had shown her the whole machine, a man who'd made her doubt her own competence. Not because he was insecure, but because her confidence was the only thing that could catch him.
Marcus, she said, I want to ask you something, and I want you to be honest because you've earned the right and I've been a fool for 18 months. If I take this to the board tomorrow, the theft, the shell company, all of it, what happens legally? He's finished. This is fraud Victoria. Provable documented fraud against a company he had a fiduciary connection to.
This isn't a bad breakup. This is criminal. And the DA would be delighted to have it because a name like Adrien Cole is a headline conviction. Marcus paused. But you should understand what he'll do when he sees it coming.
A cornered man like that, he'll try to burn everything on his way down. He'll go to the press first before we can and he'll get his version out. The emotional breakdown story. He'll say you're unstable that you fabricated all this out of a jealous rage because he left you. He'll say Marcus hesitated.
He already floated part of it. I've had two calls from reporters this weekend. He's telling people you had a breakdown Friday night, that you disappeared, that you were seen leaving with a member of the building staff. The office went silent. He's building the story, Victoria said slowly.
That I'm unstable and that I ran off with with a working man to make it sorted. He's going to try to make Nathan the scandal so that when the fraud comes out, everyone's already decided I'm the crazy woman who slept with the maintenance man and made up lies about her ex. That's exactly what he's doing, Marcus said. And Victoria, I have to ask because it matters for how we handle this. The member of the building staff is there.
He gave me his couch, Victoria said. He got me home safe on the worst night of my life. And he gave me his couch and he put me in his daughter's drawing covered apartment. And in the morning, he made me eggs and told me to save myself before I let myself lean on anybody, including him, especially him. She looked at Marcus and her eyes were bright.