Aisha left the next morning wearing her usual uniform.
Marcus stood in the doorway of her kitchen, hoodie pulled tight, watching her lace her shoes.
“You’re going back,” he said.
Aisha nodded, calm like this was a grocery run, not a walk into a wolf’s den. “They’ll expect me to show up. If I disappear too, they’ll search harder.”
Marcus’s pulse spiked. “It’s too dangerous.”
Aisha looked up at him. “It was dangerous the moment you walked into that closet alive.”
He hated that she was right.
She grabbed her purse, then paused at the door. “If I don’t come back by tonight,” she said, “you go to Tanya. You tell her everything. You don’t wait.”
Marcus’s throat tightened. “Aisha—”
She held up a hand. “Listen. You’re used to people dying quietly around you. Contracts. Layoffs. Headlines. You’re not used to this kind of risk. But I am.”
Marcus stared at her, the woman he’d barely noticed until she became the reason he still had a pulse.
“I owe you,” he said.
Aisha’s eyes held his. “Don’t owe me,” she said. “Change something.”
Then she left.
The door shut.
Marcus stood alone in the small kitchen, listening to the faint sound of her car engine fading down the street.
For the first time, he understood what it felt like to have no security detail.
No assistants.
No money that could fix time.
Just a man sitting with fear like a second heartbeat.
Hours crawled.
Marcus wrote. Every symptom. Every conversation. Every moment Veronica had watched him with those perfect eyes while he swallowed poison.
He realized something else too, something that twisted deeper than betrayal.
Veronica hadn’t just tried to kill him.
She had tried to make him doubt his own reality first.
Gaslight him into thinking he was “stressed,” “overworked,” “paranoid.”
She wanted him weak enough to sign control away.
He remembered paperwork she’d slid in front of him last month.
Medical power of attorney.
Temporary corporate authority “in case of emergency.”
He’d signed without reading, because he trusted her.
The shame hit like a punch.
At dusk, Aisha returned.
She didn’t slam the door. She slipped inside, locked it, then leaned against it like she’d been holding her breath all day.
Marcus rushed toward her. “Are you okay?”
Aisha nodded once, then reached into her bag and pulled out a small pill bottle.
Marcus stared. “What is that?”
Aisha’s voice dropped. “The supplements.”
She placed the bottle on the table.
Marcus picked it up with trembling hands.
No label. Just a handwritten sticker: “Daily Boost.”
His stomach turned.
Aisha pulled out something else.
A folded paper. A receipt.
“Veronica bought a refill from a private clinic,” Aisha said. “Paid in cash. But Marina printed this for her.”
Marcus’s mind snapped to Marina, the estate manager. A quiet woman who always looked nervous.
“She’ll talk?” Marcus asked.
Aisha’s eyes narrowed. “She might. If she thinks she’s the one about to go down.”
Marcus looked at the bottle, the receipt, the growing pile of proof.
For the first time, the fear shifted.
Not gone.
But sharpened into something else.
Purpose.
6. Tanya and the Door That Opened
Two nights later, Aisha drove Marcus to a small church parking lot on the west side of the city.
Marcus sat low in the passenger seat, cap pulled down, hoodie shadowing his face.
Aisha parked near a flickering light.
“You sure she’ll come?” Marcus whispered.
Aisha glanced at him. “Tanya doesn’t scare easy.”
A car pulled in across from them.
A woman stepped out, early thirties, hair pulled into a bun, wearing a blazer that looked like it had survived a hundred long days. She walked toward them with a cautious stride.
Aisha got out first.
The woman’s eyes widened when she recognized Aisha, then narrowed when she saw Marcus slide out of the car.
Marcus pulled down his hood.
Tanya froze.
“Holy—” she breathed. “You’re alive.”
Marcus’s mouth twisted. “Apparently that’s inconvenient.”
Tanya stared at him like she was trying to decide if this was real or some elaborate con.
Then she looked at Aisha.
“If you’re involved,” Tanya said slowly, “I believe it.”
Aisha’s gaze softened for a brief second. “We need help.”
Tanya didn’t waste time. “Show me what you have.”
In the dim glow of the parking lot light, Marcus handed over the pill bottle, the receipt, his notes, and a small audio recording Aisha had managed to capture on her phone earlier that day: Veronica’s voice, sharp and irritated, saying, “Just keep him sleepy. I don’t care what it takes.”
Tanya listened, face tightening.
When it ended, she exhaled slowly.
“This is serious,” she said. “Attempted homicide. Conspiracy. But you need more. You need chain of custody. You need lab tests. You need something that survives defense attorneys with teeth.”
Marcus’s jaw clenched. “I can get more.”
Tanya held up a hand. “Not you. You’re compromised. Anyone watching you will move fast.”
Aisha’s gaze flickered. “So what do we do?”
Tanya’s eyes sharpened. “We do what your wife and brother didn’t count on.”
Marcus leaned forward. “Which is?”
Tanya’s voice was low, fierce. “We turn this into a federal case.”
Marcus blinked. “Federal?”
Tanya nodded. “Poisoning crosses lines. Financial crimes cross lines. If your brother bought a captain, there’s bribery. If they’re moving money, there’s fraud. We tie this to the money. We bring in people who don’t answer to Captain Reed.”
Marcus felt a strange, almost painful swell in his chest.
Hope.
Tanya looked at him hard. “But understand this, Mr. Hail. The moment we move, your life changes. You’ll lose control of the narrative. You’ll lose privacy. You’ll lose… comfort.”
Marcus almost laughed, but it wasn’t funny.
“I already lost my comfort,” he said. “It almost killed me.”
Tanya nodded once. “Okay. Then we go.”
7. The Gala Where Truth Wore a Tuxedo
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