Chapter 298: Chapter 300: She Made A Mistake
Marcus listened to all of it without interrupting.
When she finished he was quiet for a moment.
Then he said: "She approached you directly."
"Yes."
"Outside your building."
"Yes."
"Which means she’s been watching your building." He said it evenly. Not to frighten her. Just registering it.
"Yes," Mei said. "I had assumed."
Marcus looked at his phone.
Mei watched his face. She’d been watching this man’s face for months....in hospital corridors, at estate dinners, in the background of every significant moment of the last year. She’d come to understand him as a person who showed very little but that the little he showed was accurate.
Right now what he was showing was the expression of a man who had just received the last piece of something.
"Marcus," she said.
He looked up.
"Do you have her," she said.
He looked at her for a moment.
"Yes," he said. "I have her."
Mei picked up her tea.
"Good," she said.
***
DAMIEN’S POV
He was in the shower when Marcus called.
He got out and called him back in ninety seconds.
Marcus told him about the passport scan first. The Meridian account, the chain complete, the file ready to go to the lawyers this morning. Damien stood in the bathroom with a towel around his waist and listened and felt something settle in him that had been unsettled for weeks.
Then Marcus told him about Mei.
The settling turned into something else.
"She approached Mei directly," he said.
"Outside her building at six fifteen this morning. Knew her routine, knew her address, positioned herself specifically." Marcus paused. "She threatened Aria through her mother. Told Mei to tell Aria to consider her options. To walk away from the foundation, the hospital, the city."
Damien was very quiet.
"She’s made a mistake," Marcus said.
"Yes."
"Approaching Mei directly....that’s not information release, that’s not journalism, that’s not anything she can frame as public interest. That’s harassment. That’s threatening behaviour." Marcus paused. "That’s the legal line."
"I know."
"Combined with what I have from Meridian...."
"I know, Marcus."
A pause.
"Do you want me to call the lawyers," Marcus said.
"I’ll do it myself," Damien said. "Have the full file to me in twenty minutes."
"It’s ready now."
"Then send it."
He hung up.
He stood in the bathroom for a moment.
He thought about Mei Chen at six fifteen AM on a pavement in front of her building looking at the woman who had been running a campaign against her daughter for weeks and saying you have one minute.
He almost smiled.
Then he thought about Aria.
She didn’t know yet.
She was asleep in the next room.....he’d left her sleeping at five thirty when he’d gotten up, her face completely still, the deep sleep of someone who had spent three days running on adrenaline and had finally, last night, let herself rest.
He was going to have to wake her up.
He went to do it.
****
ARIA’S POV
She was awake when he came in.
Not from the call....she hadn’t heard it. Just the particular instinct she’d developed over a year of living in proximity to a man who moved carefully but whose quality of movement changed when something had happened.
She sat up.
He sat on the edge of the bed and looked at her and told her both things.
Marcus had the full chain. Victoria. The passport scan. The Meridian account. Everything documented and ready for the lawyers this morning.
And Mei.
She listened to the second part without moving.
When he finished the room was very quiet.
"She went to my mother," Aria said.
"Yes."
"She stood outside my mother’s building and waited for her to come out and then she...." She stopped.
"Yes."
She looked at the window.
She thought about Mei sitting in a cab alone on the way to the estate at six AM. Not calling Aria first. Not wanting to frighten her before there was something concrete to say. Getting in a cab and going to Marcus because Mei Chen had spent twenty four years protecting her daughter and old habits were old habits.
She thought about Victoria on a pavement delivering a message through her mother because she’d calculated that going through Mei would land differently than going through Aria directly.
She’d been right.
It did land differently.
Not in the way Victoria had intended.
She got out of bed.
"Aria...."
"I’m okay," she said. "I’m not....I’m not falling apart." She went to find her clothes. "I’m angry. That’s different." She turned to look at him. "She’s done. Right? Marcus has enough."
"The lawyers are getting the file this morning," he said. "Yes. She’s done."
"How long."
"By the end of today she’ll know we have it. By tomorrow the lawyers will have filed." He held her gaze. "It’s over."
She stood there for a moment.
She thought about eight months. Sydney, the physiotherapy exercises, the harbour view, the patience Victoria had built into something she’d thought was invisible.
She thought about a passport scan and a legacy API endpoint and Marcus at his desk at two AM finding the door that wasn’t quite closed.
She thought about her mother getting in a cab.
"I want to see her," she said. "Mum. Before anything else today."
"She’s in the kitchen with Mrs Abel."
"Of course she is." Something moved through her that wasn’t quite a laugh. She put on her jumper....his jumper, the one she’d claimed months ago. "Come down with me."
He stood up.
She stopped at the door.
"Damien."
He looked at her.
"When it’s done," she said. "Victoria. I want to....I don’t want the lawyers to be the last word on it." She held his gaze. "I want to talk to her."
He looked at her.
"Not to forgive her," she said. "Not to perform something for anyone. I just...." She paused. "I need to look at her and say something that isn’t through lawyers or journalists or any of this." She paused. "Is that...."
"If that’s what you want," he said. "Then that’s what happens."
She nodded.
She went downstairs.
