"Callum," Marcus said. "I was going to call you."
"I'm sure you were."
Callum stood in the doorway of the CFO's office and looked at the man he'd considered a brother for eleven years. Marcus had a box on his desk — not full, just started, a few framed photographs and a coffee mug sitting in it with the careful arrangement of someone who had packed quickly but wanted to appear unhurried.
"Sit down, Marcus."
"I'd rather—"
"Sit down."
Marcus sat.
Callum crossed to his own chair — the one across the desk, the visitor's chair, which was deliberate — and sat in it with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped and looked at Marcus with an expression that had taken him years to perfect: absolute stillness that communicated absolute certainty.
"Before you say anything," Callum said, "I want you to think very carefully about what version of this you're going to give me. Because I will know if it's the wrong one."
Marcus considered him. The smile had faded. In its place was something that might, in another man, have been shame.
"How much do you know?" Marcus asked.
"More than you think."
"The drive."
"Among other things."
Marcus exhaled through his nose. He looked at the box on his desk. "I didn't want anyone to get hurt. I want you to know that first."
"My ex-wife watched me get hit by a car." Callum's voice didn't change. "I spent nine days unconscious and woke up not knowing who I was. My memory of five years of my life was erased." He paused. "Tell me more about no one getting hurt."
Marcus had the grace to close his eyes.
"Victoria came to me two years before the accident," he said. "She said she needed help. That she'd been treated unfairly, that you'd chosen Elara over her for the wrong reasons, that she needed leverage." He opened his eyes. "I thought leverage meant business intelligence. Something financial. I didn't know she was going to—"
"Did you find out afterward?"
A pause.
"Yes," Marcus said.
"And you said nothing."
"I was involved by then. If it came out—"
"You were protecting yourself," Callum said. "Not me. Not Elara. Yourself."
Marcus said nothing.
"The hospital payment," Callum said. "The staff member."
Marcus went very still.
"I want the name," Callum said. "Right now."
— ✶ —
Marcus gave him the name.
A nurse — a young woman, apparently in significant debt, apparently approached six months before the accident by someone Marcus described only as *one of Victoria's contacts.* Offered enough money to make the debt disappear in exchange for one specific task: to be present when Callum woke up. To ensure that the first coherent medical voice he heard described his situation in Victoria's preferred terms. To make sure Elara's visits were limited and framed as distressing.
"She didn't know the full picture," Marcus said, which Callum neither confirmed nor denied.
"Where is Victoria?" Callum asked.
"I don't know. She called me at five this morning and told me to leave. She knew something had shifted." Marcus looked at him. "She's careful, Callum. She's been careful for years. You'll have a difficult time proving—"
"I have the audio file," Callum said simply.
Marcus's face went the colour of old paper.
"She didn't know she was being recorded," Callum said. "She rarely does." He stood. "Don't leave the city, Marcus. My legal team will be in contact within the hour."
He was in the elevator when his phone rang.
Elara.
"Garrett just called me," she said, before he could speak. "Victoria hasn't left the country yet. She's at Heathrow. Terminal five. Her flight boards in ninety minutes."
Callum was already moving. "Can Garrett delay her?"
"He says he knows someone. But Callum—" A pause. Her voice shifted into something careful, something controlled. "If she boards that flight, we lose the window. The financial records are solid but the audio is—"
"The audio is enough," he said.
"It might not be. She'll claim it's fabricated."
"Then I'll go to Heathrow."
Silence.
"Callum." Elara's voice was different now — stripped of its careful professionalism, just her, just the raw version. "If you go there and confront her and she gets on that plane anyway, you will have shown your hand for nothing. You need to think about what you're willing to risk."
He stepped out of the elevator into the lobby. He stopped.
"I'm willing to risk everything," he said. "I've already lost everything once."
He heard
her breath catch.
"Meet me outside," he said. "Now