Chapter 3 - Marcus Comes Back
Marcus arrived at 4:18 that afternoon.
No flowers.
No apology.
No shame.
He wore a charcoal suit that probably cost more than my truck.
Security should have stopped him.
Renee had forgotten to remove him from an old approved visitor list.
He walked into Room 608 like he still belonged there.
“Renee.”
She went rigid.
I stood from the chair beside the window.
Marcus looked at me.
“Who is this?”
“Daniel.”
“That answers nothing.”
Renee said:
“He’s with me.”
Marcus laughed.
“Since when?”
“Since it became none of your business.”
His expression tightened.
Then he saw the board papers.
“Good. You got them.”
Renee stared.
“You sent these?”
“No.”
“Then why are you here?”
“To keep you from destroying what your father built.”
I almost laughed.
Renee did not.
Marcus moved closer.
“You need to sign the temporary delegation.”
“No.”
“Victoria is trying to help you.”
“No.”
“The company cannot sit frozen while you wait for a miracle donor.”
Her face changed.
He had chosen the cruelest version deliberately.
I stepped between them.
“Back up.”
Marcus looked at my work jacket.
“Who the hell are you?”
“The person telling you to back up.”
He smiled.
Condescending.
“Electrician?”
I looked down.
Company logo on jacket.
“Good reading.”
Marcus ignored me.
He reached for Renee.
She pulled her hand away.
“Don’t touch me.”
“Stop acting like a child.”
He grabbed her wrist.
I moved.
Fast.
Not because I was brave.
Because I had spent four years remembering all the moments I wished I could have protected Sarah from something bigger than both of us.
I caught Marcus’s forearm.
“Let go.”
He did not.
I twisted his hand away from Renee.
He turned on me.
“Take your hands off me.”
“Gladly.”
I released.
Marcus shoved me.
Hard.
My hip struck a metal cart.
Instruments crashed onto the floor.
The alarm on Renee’s monitor chirped.
A nurse shouted from the corridor.
Marcus grabbed the stack of corporate documents and slammed them onto Renee’s chest.
“Sign it, Renee!”
She stared at him.
“You’ll be dead before the board meets anyway!”
Everything stopped.
Even Marcus seemed to realize he had said it aloud.
I stepped forward.
He raised a hand.
“Stay out of my way.”
“No.”
“You’re nobody.”
“Maybe.”
I moved between him and the bed.
“But she said no.”
Marcus’s face twisted.
He tried pushing past.
I caught his arm.
Not a fight.
Not yet.
A barrier.
Then Renee did something I did not expect.
She reached beside her pillow.
Black document box.
About the size of a laptop case.
She threw it toward me.
“Daniel!”
Marcus lunged.
I caught it against my chest.
“What is this?”
“Keep it away from him.”
Marcus’s panic changed everything.
He stopped caring about me.
“Give me that.”
“No.”
“You don’t know what you’re holding.”
“Correct.”
He came at me.
We hit the window.
Boston spread below us.
He grabbed for the box.
I shoved him backward.
The latch opened.
Inside:
One contract.
Several sealed envelopes.
A flash drive.
And a letter bearing Arthur Sterling’s signature.
I saw only the first page of the contract.
PERSONAL REPRESENTATIVE AND PUBLIC PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT.
Compensation:
$12,000,000.
I stared.
Marcus reached again.
Renee ripped the oxygen tubing from beneath her nose because it had tangled around her arm.
“Stop!”
Nathan and Michael burst through the door with hospital security.
Marcus froze.
Renee’s breathing was rough.
Her eyes stayed on me.
“Twelve million dollars, Daniel.”
“What?”
“Stand beside me for six months.”
Marcus laughed.
Almost hysterical.
“You’d trust a random stranger over me?”
Renee looked at him.
“You stopped being someone I trust before I got sick.”
Security removed Marcus from the room.
He shouted until the doors closed.
Nathan immediately checked Renee.
Nurses fixed her oxygen.
I stood holding the black box.
“What the hell is this?”
Renee looked exhausted.
“Something my father prepared years ago.”
“For me?”
“No.”
A faint smile.
“For whoever I chose when everyone else became dangerous.”
Nathan opened one of the sealed envelopes.
His face changed.
“What?”
He looked at Renee.
“We received the investigator’s dossier.”
“On Marcus?”
Nathan hesitated.
Then handed her a photograph.
Renee stared.
I looked over her shoulder.
Marcus stood in a hotel lobby.
Beside him was a woman I recognized from financial television.
Victoria Sterling.
Renee’s aunt.
Nathan’s voice became quiet.
May you like
“Renee, Marcus wasn’t the one who orchestrated this betrayal.”
Continue to the next part: The photograph points toward the woman Renee trusted most after her father died.
