I apologize for the delay at the desk this morning. We should have the process should have been clearer. If you need anything for your meeting, I can personally escort you up to the legal floor. Damian looked at him. Thank you, Marcus.
Marcus blinked. You know my name. I know a lot about this building. Damian said. He said it without smuggness.
As a simple fact, I've been paying attention for a while. Victoria was still holding the document. She'd straightened the way people straighten when they're trying to reassemble something that's fallen. Her voice when it came was professional. It was the voice of a woman who had been building armor her entire career and knew how to put it on in public.
Quickly without letting anyone see you do it. Mister Brooks, she said, I think it would be best if we moved this conversation. I agree, he said. Upstairs with your legal team, he paused. That was my original suggestion.
He bent down. The gesture was quiet, unhurried. He picked up the $300 bills from the marble floor, all three of them, and he folded them once and held them in his hand. And he looked at them for a moment, the way a person looks at something they plan to remember. He didn't put them in his pocket.
He turned to the receptionist, the young woman who had asked him to wait, who had stood behind her desk through all of it, and whose face now carried the kind of expression that comes comes from witnessing something you weren't prepared for. "Is there a donation box," he said, "or a charity this company supports?" The receptionist stared at him. We Yes, there's a children's hospital fund at the desk. Thank you, he said. He set the three bills on the counter.
Put it there. He picked up his leather folder from where it had fallen when Victoria grabbed it. He checked that the documents were intact. He closed it. He looked one more time at the steel letters of the company name above the elevator bank.
Then he looked at Victoria Caldwell. I'll see you upstairs, he said. The elevator ride was 42 floors. Damian rode it with Marcus Hill, who did not say anything for the first 30 floors and then said very quietly. I want you to know I told them you were expected.
I said it twice. I know you did. Damen said what she did. Marcus said what she did down there. He stopped, started again.