Chapter 16 - Victor Finally Called
The emergency lights came on in strips along the floor.
Isaac's security team moved through the penthouse within seconds.
Doors locked.
Elevators stopped.
The alarm was silenced manually.
My father did not move.
He kept the phone against his ear.
"Victor."
I had never heard him say a name with that much history inside it.
"You sound old," Victor said.
Dad's expression did not change.
"You sound alive."
"Disappointed?"
"Temporarily."
Victor laughed.
"There he is."
Margaret gestured for Dad to keep him talking.
A security technician began tracing the call.
Victor seemed to know.
"Tell your people not to waste themselves."
"You called me."
"Because your daughter has become inconvenient."
Every person in the room looked at me.
Dad's voice hardened.
"Say her name again and this conversation ends."
"Still your weakness."
"Still alive because I chose lawful methods over yours."
"You chose reputation."
"No."
Dad looked at the photograph of my mother.
"Helen chose law."
Victor went quiet for half a beat.
Then he said, "Helen chose you."
The bitterness in his voice was unmistakable.
I looked at Dad.
He did not look at me.
"Is that what this is about?" Dad asked.
"After thirty-one years, you think this is about a woman?"
"I think men like you spend their whole lives building sophisticated explanations for simple wounds."
Victor's laughter disappeared.
"You stole my company."
"You stole client money."
"I was covering a temporary loss."
"With money that wasn't yours."
"We could have survived it."
"We did survive it."
Dad's voice turned colder.
"You didn't."
The call went silent.
I understood then why Victor hated him.
My father did not need to shout.
He could reduce thirty years of revenge to one failed justification.
Victor recovered.
"Your daughter married well."
My body went rigid.
Dad's eyes sharpened.
"Adrian was always weak," Victor continued.
"But weakness can be trained."
"You paid him to marry her."
"I gave an ambitious man an opportunity."
I took a step closer.
Dad shook his head at me.
I ignored him.
"Did you choose Adrian because you knew he would hurt me?"
Victor became silent.
He had not known I was listening.
"Mara."
His voice was almost warm.
I hated him immediately.
"Answer me."
"No."
"Why him?"
"Because he wanted to be important more than he wanted to be good."
The precision of the answer chilled me.
"And Vanessa?"
"She wanted to be chosen."
"Lionel?"
"He wanted what his father promised him."
"What did you want?"
Victor laughed softly.
"To finish the correction your parents interrupted."
"By stealing Hartwell Infrastructure?"
"Stealing?"
His voice hardened.
"Hartwell exists because your father betrayed me."
"Hartwell exists because you committed fraud."
Dad looked at me.
For the first time that day, pride flickered through his anger.
Victor did not appreciate the answer.
"You sound like Helen."
"Good."
A longer silence.
"She was less certain at the end."
Dad stepped forward.
"Don't."
Victor continued anyway.
"Did Gideon tell you she met me six weeks before she died?"
My eyes moved to Dad.
He looked genuinely shocked.
"That's a lie," he said.
"Is it?"
"Helen was in treatment."
"And still smarter than you."
Victor sounded pleased now.
"She asked me for the Red Book."
"You didn't have it."
"Didn't I?"
Dad's face changed.
"How did you get it?"
"Ask Lionel."
The line crackled.
The security technician signaled that the call was bouncing through multiple relays.
Victor continued.
"Helen knew the book contained more than my crimes."
"What are you talking about?"
"Your acquisition of Marwick Freight."
Dad went still.
I looked between them.
"What about it?"
Victor laughed.
"There are no clean fortunes, Mara."
Dad's voice sharpened.
"Marwick was a lawful acquisition."
"Lawful is such a useful word."
"Say what you mean."
"You bought a distressed company after receiving nonpublic information from a lender."
Dad's face did not change.
Victor continued.
"Helen found the memo."
I looked at my father.
"Dad?"
"It was investigated."
Victor laughed.
"Not publicly."
Dad's jaw tightened.
"Because there was no violation."
"Because you had better lawyers."
Margaret whispered, "Do not debate him."
Victor heard her.
"Margaret Lin."
She froze.
"Still cleaning Gideon's floors?"
"Still hiding behind relays?" she replied.
Victor chuckled.
"I always liked you."
"The feeling has never been mutual."
Dad took the phone off speaker for a moment.
Then he looked at me.
"Mara, leave the room."
"No."
"This is between Victor and me."
"It became about me when he paid my husband to marry me."
Victor's voice came from the phone.
"She's right, Gideon."
Dad put it back on speaker.
"What do you want?"
"The obvious thing."
"Which is?"
"Withdraw the fraud reports against the offshore structure."
Margaret laughed in disbelief.
"Impossible."
"Reinstate Lionel's trust powers."
"No."
"And allow tomorrow's infrastructure sale vote to proceed."
"Also no."
Victor sighed.
"Then the Red Book goes public."
Dad stared at the phone.
"Publish it."
I looked at him.
Victor went silent.
Dad repeated himself.
"Publish every page."
"You don't know what is in it."
"Neither do you."
"I have it."
"You have scans."
Victor's silence told us Dad had guessed correctly.
"Helen would never give you the original," Dad continued.
"If she met you, she met you for a reason."
Victor's voice became colder.
"You still think she loved you more."
Dad's reply was quiet.
"This was never a competition except in your mind."
The line disconnected.
The security technician shook his head.
"No trace."
Dad put the phone down.
I looked at him.
"Did Mom meet him?"
"I don't know."
"What about Marwick Freight?"
"I will give you every file."
"Not later."
"Now."
That answer mattered.
No more edited histories.
No more protection through omission.
Before we could move, David called.
He sounded breathless.
"We found something in the Red Book scans."
Dad answered.
"What?"
"The page numbers skip from eighty-seven to ninety-one."
"Three missing pages."
"Yes."
"And?"
"The scans include faint impressions from the missing sheets."
I stepped closer.
"Can you recover them?"
"We're trying."
"Anything readable?"
"One line."
"What line?"
David read it slowly.
"If Victor ever comes for Mara, the original is where she learned numbers never lie."
My eyes filled before I could stop them.
I knew exactly where my mother meant.
The old accounting classroom at Hartwell's first office.
The room where she taught me bookkeeping when I was nine.
Dad looked at me.
"The building was sold twenty years ago."
"No."
I wiped my eyes.
"The company sold the building."
"What's the difference?"
May you like
I looked at him.
"Mom bought the classroom."
