Chapter 266: Chapter 268: Marcus Found Alexandra
MARCUS’S POV
The study felt different with the door closed.
He spread the files on the desk.
Damien stood on the other side of the table, He had some document in his hands.
"The transaction trail," Damien said finally.
"Clean on the surface. Victoria used a different structure than the first transfer....new shell company, different routing path, she or whoever helped her set it up clearly understood that the first transaction had been flagged." Marcus pointed to the relevant section of the document. "But she used the same payment processor at the last stage. Habit, probably. Or she ran out of clean options. Either way, it’s the same signature."
"She’s working with someone."
"Someone with financial infrastructure. The shell setup is professional." He paused. "This isn’t Victoria doing this alone on a laptop in Sydney. She has help."
Damien’s jaw tightened.
"The motel," he said.
Marcus pulled up the second section. "Clearwater Motel, Pioche, Nevada. Population of about nine hundred. One main road in and out, no major transport links within fifty miles. If you wanted somewhere to disappear in the American west, you could do worse." He turned the laptop so Damien could see the satellite image he’d pulled. "Room fourteen. End of the building. Car park view, not road facing. The booking name is Daniel Marsh."
"Cameras?"
"Motel has two. One at the entrance, one at the office. Neither covers room fourteen directly." He paused. "Whoever picked this location was thinking about cameras."
"Harold was thinking about cameras."
"Yes."
Damien looked at the satellite image for a long time.
Marcus waited.
He’d worked for this man long enough to understand the silences....which ones were processing, which ones were deciding, which ones were the particular cold settling that happened when Damien Blackwood moved from thinking about a problem to resolving it. This silence had the quality of the last one.
"I want the location confirmed," Damien said. "Eyes on the ground. Someone who can verify he’s actually in that room before we move."
"I have a contact in Vegas. Four hours from Pioche."
"Call them."
"Already did," Marcus said. "They’re en route."
Something shifted in Damien’s face. Not surprise exactly....he’d learned not to be surprised by Marcus’s preparation. But the particular acknowledgement he gave when something had been handled correctly.
"The twenty million," he said. "What’s he doing with it?"
"That’s what concerns me." Marcus pulled up the third section. "Fifty thousand was running money. Living expenses, keeping mobile, staying ahead. Twenty million is operational." He looked at Damien. "He’s not hiding anymore. He’s preparing."
"For what."
"I don’t know yet." He paused. "But the timing is not coincidental. Victoria sent this transfer three days after Aria’s discharge. "He knows she survived. He knows she’s here. And now he has twenty million."
"Get your contact on the phone the moment they have eyes on that motel," Damien said.
"Yes boss."
"And Marcus." He looked up from the file. "Nobody tells Aria the specifics until we’ve confirmed. She’ll want to be in the middle of this and she can’t be. Not yet."
Marcus considered whether to say what he was thinking.
He said it. "She’s going to know you’re keeping something from her."
"She already knows," Damien said. "She’s choosing to wait because she trusts me to tell her." A pause. "I’m going to tell her. After we’ve confirmed."
"And if she doesn’t wait?"
Something moved across Damien’s face. A very specific expression that Marcus had only seen directed at one person.
"Then I’ll deal with that too," he said.
****
ARIA’S POV
She spent the morning in the garden.
Dr. Morrison had recommended it....not as therapy, just as practice. Being in a space you feel safe in. Letting your nervous system register that the safety is real. It had sounded almost too simple when she’d said it. But Aria had learned not to underestimate simple things.
She sat on the bench by the east garden wall with her notebook and the Victoria file open on her phone and the morning sun on her face and let herself think.
She added three things to the notes.
The first: Victoria had grown up watching her father manage information. She understood how stories got told and who got to tell them. Whatever she was planning, it wouldn’t be physical....not directly. The warehouse had cost her too much. She wouldn’t risk that kind of exposure again.
The second: Victoria had lost her social world. Her standing. The thing she’d been built to inhabit. That wasn’t just loss....that was loss of identity. When someone loses their identity they don’t just want revenge. They want restoration. They want the world to look at the person who took it from them and see what they see.
The third: She’s going to try to make people look at me differently.
She sat with that one.
Her phone buzzed.
Lucy: are you in the garden? Mrs Chen wants to know if you want lunch outside
She typed back: yes please tell her thank you
She looked at her notes.
Then she looked up at the study window on the second floor.
Damien was there. Just for a second....she caught the shape of him through the glass, and then he stepped back and the window was empty.
She thought about his face at breakfast.
She closed the Victoria file. Put her phone in her pocket. Turned her face up toward the sun for a moment, the way Dr. Morrison had insructed.....just let your body register the warmth, the realness of it.
She was still doing that when she heard the study window open above her.
She looked up.
Damien was leaning on the sill, looking down at her. He had his phone in one hand and the expression on his face had shifted....something resolved in it that hadn’t been there at breakfast.
"Come inside," he said.
Not a question.
"Marcus?" she said.
He looked at her for a moment.
"He found him," he said.
