What are your small consistent things now? Now, I mean, not then. He looked at her. He knew what she was actually asking. She was asking whether any of them involved her.
She was asking it sideways in the careful language of someone who has not yet fully given themselves permission to ask it directly. He could have answered sideways too, he chose not to. Saturday mornings, he said with coffee. That's new. She held his gaze for a long moment.
For me, too, she said quietly. That's new for me, too. And then Marcus's phone rang and he looked at it and the name on the screen was Tommy. And he answered it because Tommy never called on Saturday morning unless something was wrong and something was wrong. Marcus Tommy's voice was too fast.
The words pressed up against each other. I need to tell you something and I need you to not get angry until I finish talk. Marcus said, I got a call yesterday from someone at Coastal. They offered me a job contract lead on a new Atlanta project. 20% More than I'm making now.
Full benefits company truck a breath I said no I want you to know I said no but Marketh they knew things about the company about our bids about the contract timeline on the Bennett property specific things that you'd only know from inside Marcus was very still they knew about the investment offer Tommy said from Mr. Bennett. They knew about it before it was public. They knew the approximate number. Silence.
Tommy, Marcus said carefully. Did you tell anyone about that offer? Anyone at all? No, I swear, Marcus. I swear on everything.
I believe you. And he did. Do you know who they got the information from? A pause. Long enough that Marcus understood the pause.
Tommy, he said, say it. I don't know for certain, Tommy said. But the person who called me the way they talked about the company, the things they knew, the casual way they knew them, Mark, it sounded like someone who had access to your books. Not from the outside, from inside. Marcus looked at Deshawn's truck, parked at the edge of the property.
Desawn, who had been with him for 4 years. Desawn, who knew everything. Deshawn, whose face he could read in almost every situation, who had stood at his side through the worst months, who had a family of his own to worry about. "Thank you for telling me," Marcus said to Tommy. "Come in Monday.
We'll talk." He hung up. He stood still for a full 30 seconds. Olivia had heard enough of the call to know something had shifted. She was watching him with her full attention. "What happened?" she said.
He told her. All of it. He watched her face as he talked the CEO precision coming back online. But underneath it, something warmer, something that was on his side in a way that was personal rather than strategic. You don't know it's Deshawn, she said when he finished.