He held Renick's gaze. Is there something else? Renick stood very still. You're not afraid, Renick said, and it came out sounding slightly surprised. No, Marcus said.
I'm not most people. I know what most people do, Marcus said. I'm not most people. He turned back toward the property. This is private property.
Mr. Renick, you're not a client and you're not invited. I'd appreciate you leaving. He walked away. He heard the car start after about 30 seconds heard it pull away.
Desawn appeared at his shoulder with the timing of someone who had been watching from inside the property through the gap in the fence. Who was that? Desawn said. Someone who thought I'd be afraid, Marcus said. Hm.
Desawn picked up a tool. How'd that work out for him? About how you'd expect, Marcus said. They went to work. An hour later, Marcus's phone buzzed.
A text from a number he'd recently added. It said, "Renick just called me." He said, and I'm quoting, "Your contractor friend is either very brave or very stupid." I told him those weren't mutually exclusive. Oh, Marcus stared at the message for a second. He wrote back, "An 8-year-old taught me that phrase. The response came in under a minute.
She's going to run the world someday. Marcus typed. I know. I'm genuinely not ready. Three dots appeared.
Disappeared. Appeared again. Then you're more ready than you think. You've been getting her ready since she was 2 years old. He held the phone for a long moment.
He wrote, "How are you doing?" Honestly, the response took longer, long enough that he went back to work, phone in his pocket, and was 20 minutes into the next section of framing before it buzzed. Honestly, I called Whitmore this morning, told him about James Okafor. Everything you said I should tell him, said it exactly the way you told me to say it. True, specific, and without managing it. Marcus stopped working and he typed.
He was quiet for a very long time. Came the response and then he said, "Olivia, that's the first thing you've said to me in four years that made me believe the company is in safe hands." Marcus read that three times. Then he typed, "I told you you did." She wrote, "Don't be smug about it. I'm not smug," he wrote. I mean, stopped, "Started again.
I'm glad you did it." A pause. Then, me too. And then after another pause, Marcus, whatever happens in that board meeting, whatever they say about the investment, about my father, about all of it, I need you to know something. He waited. The best decisions I've made in the last month, she wrote all happened in conversations with you on a job site, on a truck tailgate, on the phone at 11 at night.