Claire's whole body went rigid. Absolutely not. Hear me out. You want me to perform the one thing I've hidden my entire adult life.
To hand him the exact weapon he's been trying to steal. To fall apart on purpose in front of the man who wants me declared insane. Her voice had climbed. Do you have any idea what you're asking?
Yeah, Marcus said quietly. I'm asking you to trust me. Which is the same thing you asked me Friday night when everything said I was guilty and you told your men to let me up anyway. He didn't back down.
He'd learned that from her. Listen. Right now he thinks his plan is still viable. He thinks the attacks are your secret weakness and one day he'll catch you in one and it'll be over.
As long as he believes that he keeps trying to catch you, which means he keeps setting little traps and every trap he sets, he exposes himself a little more. But if you suddenly become a fortress, if you never show a crack again, then he knows something changed. He knows you got help. He knows you're hunting.
And that's when he stops setting traps and starts swinging the hammer. Marcus spread his hands. I'm not asking you to fall apart Claire. I'm asking you to let him think the door is still open.
Let him keep believing his plan works. Keep him reaching for the bait instead of reaching for the hammer. Because every day he keeps reaching, he leaves one more fingerprint and sooner or later he leaves the one we need. Tomorrow my sources in bomb.
Claire stared at him. He watched her fight it every instinct she had. Every wall she'd built over 40 years screaming against the idea of willingly showing weakness to her enemy. And he watched her slowly do the same brutal arithmetic she'd done Friday night.
Weigh the things she was terrified of against the things she needed and choose the need. You're asking me to use the worst thing about me as a lure, she he I'm asking you to use it as a weapon, Marcus said. There's a difference. He thinks it's your weakness.
We're going to make it the thing that catches him. Same as Friday. He thought I was going to be the thing that broke you. Instead, I'm the thing that's going to bury him.
He keeps turning your weaknesses into weapons, Claire. I'm just proposing we finally return the favor. Something shifted in Claire Whitmore's face. The fear was still there.
It would always be there. Marcus was learning. That was what she'd tried so hard to hide, that the fear never left you. Just learn to work with it in the room.
But alongside the fear now was something harder and brighter, and Marcus recognized it because it was the thing that had gotten him off the floor Friday night and kept him upright ever since. It was the decision to stop being the person things happened to. All right, she said. We do it your way.
But Marcus, she pointed at him and her voice was pure steel now. If we're going to dangle me in front of my brother like a piece of meat, then I need to know that the man holding the other end of the rope is not going to let go. Because I've spent my whole life alone in these rooms, and I've survived by trusting no one. And now you're asking me to survive by trusting exactly one person.
And if you're wrong about any of this, if you disappear, if you flinch, if you sell me out for a better offer, I don't just lose the company. I lose everything. So, look me in the eye and tell me you understand what you're holding. Marcus looked her in the eye.
Friday night, he said, you had every reason to bury me. The easy thing, the safe thing, the smart thing was to let your men cuff me and let the story be the story. Nobody would have blamed you. Nobody would have ever known.
But you looked at a stranger on the floor of your suite, and you decided to see the truth instead of the convenient lie. And that decision saved my daughter from growing up without a father. His voice was low and even and absolutely certain. I don't forget things like that.
I'm not built to. You held the rope for me when letting go would have been easier for you than anything in the world. So, you want to know if I'll hold it for you. He shook his head slowly.
There's no version of this where I let go. Not because you're paying me. Not because of the trust you signed. Because you came in when you could have walked away.
And I told you Friday why I don't respect people who walk away. He held her gaze. I'm not walking away. For a long moment, Claire Whitmore did not speak.
And then to Marcus's complete surprise, her eyes went bright and she turned quickly away toward the window so he wouldn't see. And when she spoke, her voice was rougher than he'd ever heard it. My father used to say, she managed, that you can hire loyalty or you can earn it. And the hired kind runs the moment someone offers more.
She wiped her face with the back of her hand, fast embarrassed. He said the only loyalty worth anything is the kind you can't buy. I never believed him. I thought everyone had a price.
I built my entire life on the assumption that everyone had a price. She turned back around, composed again, but her eyes were still too bright. You'd better not be about to prove me right, Marcus Bennett. I've got a daughter to raise and a stain on my ceiling I can't afford to fix, Marcus said.
Everybody's got a price. Mine's just not a number. He picked up his jacket. It's a bed for my little girl and a chance to not be invisible anymore.
And you already paid it. So, we're square. Now, tell me everything you know about your brother. Every habit, every weakness, everybody he's ever been close to in this building.
If he's got a man on the inside, that man has a name and that name is our way in. Claire nodded slowly. There's one, she said. If he has help, it's one person.
Alexander's not clever enough to run the technical side himself. He's a schemer, not an engineer. He'd need someone who knows the building systems cold. Someone with access.
Someone with a reason to hate me. She sat down heavily. Three years ago, I passed over a man for the head of facilities job. Gave it to an outside hire instead.
He'd been here 15 years, and he thought it was his by right. And when I gave it to someone else, he came to my office and told me I'd regret it. She looked up. His name is Danny Reyes, and he's the one who administers the master facilities account.
The room went very quiet. Marcus felt the last piece slide into place, not with satisfaction, but with a cold dread that started in his chest and spread outward, because he knew Danny Reyes. Had known him for 6 years. Had shared a break room with him, eaten lunch with him, covered his shift once when Danny's mother was sick.
Danny Reyes had shaken his hand a hundred times. "I know him." Marcus said quietly. "Danny's, Claire. Danny's a friend.
Or I thought he was. He's the one who trained me when I started. He's the one who" And then the dread turned to ice, because Marcus remembered something. Remembered it with sudden sickening clarity.
"He's the one who told me about the overtime slots. He's the one who put me on the Friday night late shift, three weeks ago. Said he was doing me a favor. Said he knew I needed the hours." Marcus stood there with his jacket half on and felt the world tilt.