Chapter 3 - The Price of Paper
The glow of the laptop screen cast long, skeletal shadows across Cormac’s face as he scrolled through the raw directory of files. Outside, the rain had turned to a heavy, rhythmic drizzle that pelted the tall warehouse windows. The loft was dead silent except for the clicking of keys and the low hum of the portable heater chugging in the corner.
"This is foundation money," Cormac said, his voice dropping into a flat, dangerous register as he clicked open a spreadsheet labeled *Phase Three Discretionary*. "Money earmarked for the children's hospital wing, funneled through three shell companies in the Caymans, and ending up in personal real estate holdings under aliases."
"He calls it 'reallocation for strategic growth,'" I said bitterly, wrapping the gray wool blanket tighter around my shoulders as I sat on the edge of the leather armchair. "If anyone questions a shortfall, the hospital board assumes construction delays or supply chain inflation. He’s been doing it for a decade."
Cormac stopped scrolling. He looked up from the screen, his dark eyes meeting mine with an uncomfortable level of clarity. "Why didn't you go to the authorities six months ago? Or a year ago?"
"And tell them what?" I asked, the defense rising automatically in my throat before I caught myself and let the anger drain out, leaving only exhaustion. "Gideon practically owns the municipal judges in three counties. The moment I walked into a precinct without absolute, airtight proof, his lawyers would have had me committed for paranoia or arrested for corporate espionage. He owns the narrative, Cormac. I was just an ornament he bought to make his board dinners look respectable."
Cormac didn't judge. He just nodded slowly, acknowledging the arithmetic of power that governed our world. He reached out, closing the laptop lid with a soft thud that echoed in the quiet room.
"An ornament doesn't keep receipts," Cormac said quietly. "You planned for this."
"I survived for this," I corrected him, looking down at the gold ring on my finger—a band Gideon had slipped on my hand two years ago as a symbol of our engagement, though it felt more like a shackle every day. "I knew that the moment he figured out I wasn't just a compliant prop, he’d try to erase me. The coaster tonight... I didn't think anyone would come. I just wanted someone, *anyone*, to know I was there."
"I saw it," Cormac said. There was no boast in his tone, only the simple weight of a fact.
He stood up, walking over to the window to peer out into the gray dawn breaking over the harbor. The first pale streaks of morning light caught the edges of his dark neck tattoos, tracing the intricate patterns against his skin. He looked less like a hired fixer and more like a man who had spent a lifetime cleaning up messes he never asked for.
"We can't sit on these files," Cormac said without turning around. "Marsh's internal security team will already be sweeping your apartment. They'll be looking for flash drives, paper notes, anything you might have left behind."
"My apartment is locked," I said.
"Marsh doesn't use locks," Cormac replied, turning back to face me. "If we want to stay ahead of him, we need the physical master ledger he keeps in his private wall safe at the residence. The digital copies are good, but a signed confession in his own handwriting is ironclad."
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My breath caught. "You want to go back there?"
"Not tonight," Cormac said, stepping close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off him. He reached down, his large, rough hand gently catching my fingers where they gripped the blanket. "Tomorrow morning, before his security team realizes you're not coming back. We go in, we take the physical ledger, and we break his foundation in half."
