Chapter 5: What Marcus Left Behind
Elena didn't sleep.
She sat at the kitchen counter with the card in one hand and her phone in the other, and she thought about Marcus.
About the four years she had known him.
About the way he had laughed — too loud, always slightly surprised by his own jokes.
About the last time she had seen him, three days before the accident, when he had hugged her at the door and held on a beat too long.
She had thought he was just tired.
At six in the morning, Sofie climbed down from the sofa and padded into the kitchen.
"I'm hungry."
Elena opened the refrigerator.
Someone had stocked it carefully — fruit, yogurt, bread, eggs, juice in a small carton with a straw already attached.
She handed Sofie the juice and started making toast.
Her phone buzzed.
Alexander.
*Come to the penthouse at eight.
Bring Sofie.*
She typed back: *Why?*
His reply was immediate.
*Because I found something in Marcus's personnel file that changes what I told you last night.
And because what's inside that vault may not be safe to open without knowing what it is first.*
Elena set the phone down.
"Are we going back up?" Sofie asked.
"Yes."
"Good." Sofie sipped her juice.
"I want to see the vault again."
---
Alexander was alone when they arrived.
No assistants.
No Richard Blake.
The conference table had been cleared except for a single manila folder sitting in the center.
He didn't say good morning.
"Sit down," he said.
Then, looking at Sofie: "Both of you."
Sofie climbed into a chair and folded her hands on the table like a small person who had attended many meetings.
Alexander opened the folder.
"Marcus Venn worked for me for seven years.
Security architecture, vault design, access systems.
He was the best I ever employed." He pushed a photograph across the table.
"This is from his personnel file.
Taken at his hiring interview."
Elena looked at the photograph.
Marcus.
Younger, thinner, but unmistakably him.
Sitting across a desk from a man Elena didn't recognize.
"Who is that?" she asked.
"The interviewer." Alexander's finger rested on the second figure.
"His name was Daniel Venn.
Listed in the file as Marcus's reference.
His uncle."
Elena frowned.
"Marcus didn't have an uncle.
His mother's family was gone.
His father's side —"
"His father's side had one surviving member.
Daniel Venn." Alexander closed the folder.
"Who also happens to be the man who built the original security framework for the Harlow Group before I acquired them.
Who also happens to have disappeared eight months before Marcus d*ed." He paused.
"And who also happens to share a last name with a shell company that received eleven transfers from accounts that do not officially exist."
The room was very quiet.
"You knew about the accounts," Elena said.
"I knew they existed.
I didn't know what was in them or who controlled them." His jaw tightened.
"Marcus apparently did."
"And you think he put proof in the vault."
"I think he put something in the vault that he didn't want me to find until someone he trusted was ready to use it." Alexander looked at Sofie.
"Someone who couldn't be threatened.
Someone who wouldn't understand what she was carrying until she was old enough to matter."
Sofie was watching him with her steady, unreadable attention.
"The numbers," Elena said.
Alexander looked at her sharply.
"Sofie has a fourteen-digit sequence.
Marcus taught it to her.
She's been reciting it since she was two."
Alexander's chair scraped back.
He stood up and walked to the vault.
"Tell me," he said.
"No." Elena's voice was flat.
"Not until I understand what we're opening and what happens to us after."
"Elena —"
"He was my brother.
Whatever is in there, he put it there for a reason.
And the reason wasn't to hand it to you." She stood up.
"So before anyone touches that vault, I want to know exactly what the Harlow accounts are, where the money went, and why Marcus d*ed two weeks after he told Richard Blake he had documentation."
Alexander turned.
"You spoke to Richard."
"He came to me."
Something moved behind Alexander's eyes.
Not surprise.
Recalculation.
"What did he tell you?"
"Enough." Elena kept her voice steady.
"Sit down, Mr.
Carter.
Because I think you've been running this company for six years not knowing that someone else has been running part of it through you.
And I think Marcus found out who.
And I think whatever is in that vault is going to tell us both things we are not going to like."
Alexander looked at her for a long moment.
Then he sat down.
"All right," he said.
"From the beginning."
May you like
He opened the folder again.
And this time, he turned it so Elena could read it too.
