All Chapters of THE UPSTANDING DAVID MALCOLM: Chapter 301
- Chapter 310
331 chapters
Chapter 300
“No problem,” her father said, and his voice had finally settled into something that resembled peace, even if it was the fragile kind, the kind that rests on conditions, “I am going to trust you on this. Just make sure you do not betray me. Make sure you do not betray yourself either.” He paused, and when he continued there was something almost gentle in it underneath everything else, the voice of a father who loves his child even when he is pressuring her, “Do it the way it was planned. Do it the way that brings glory to this family and to yourself. Remember that everyone is waiting, Sophia. Everyone.”“I have heard you,” she said, and her voice was soft but final, “Like I said before, you have nothing to worry about.”She ended the call.The office went quiet around her.Sophia stood there for a moment with the phone held loosely in her hand and her eyes fixed on the middle distance, on nothing really, just the air in front of her, and then she pulled in a slow deep breath and let
Chapter 301
“So who exactly is this person?” David asked, and she could hear him thinking on the other end of the line, that particular shift in his voice that meant he was paying closer attention now, “Because from the way you are saying it, from the way it is sounding, this is not just anybody. This is someone that actually matters.”Sophia settled back slightly.“You know you have been doing well,” she said, keeping her voice even and professional, “You and your father, the company, everything that has been built, it is all moving in the right direction. But there is that standing business arrangement, the one that gets renewed every year.” She paused just briefly, “The contract window is open right now and if you do not renew it at this particular time, it may not be available to you again, especially if we cross into the next cycle and the terms have changed. That alone is reason enough to show up.” She shifted the phone slightly, “And then there is the governor. He wants to sign a multi-mi
Chapter 302
Elizabeth nodded and something in her posture shifted, the uncertainty from a moment ago folding itself away and being replaced by something more solid, more decided.“You are right,” she said, and she meant it, “I believe in myself. I know what I am capable of and I know that once I am in that room with him and I start talking, I will convince him. I have no reason to be afraid." She squared her shoulders and looked at the entrance ahead of them, “I am going to go in there and I am going to use everything I have.”Victoria looked at her with quiet satisfaction, the kind that does not need to be loud to be genuine.“That is exactly what I want to hear from you,” she said, nodding once, "That is the spirit. Now let us go.”They had barely taken two steps toward the entrance when Victoria's hand shot out and grabbed Elizabeth's arm.“Wait.” Her voice dropped immediately, sharp and low, “Look. Look who that is.”Elizabeth turned her head expecting to see Mr. Festus, expecting the man the
Chapter 303
David looked at her for a moment.And then he laughed.Not a small polite laugh, not the kind a person uses to fill an awkward silence. He laughed genuinely, the way a person does when something strikes them as so far removed from reality that the only available response is amusement, his head tilting back slightly with it, one hand coming up briefly before dropping back to his side.“A tracker,” he said, and the laughter was still sitting in his voice when he said it, coloring every word, “You think I put a tracker on you.” He looked at her with something that was equal parts disbelief and entertainment, “Why would I do that? What exactly would be the point? To follow you around and do what with the information?”Victoria did not give Elizabeth a chance to answer first.She stepped forward and put herself squarely in the conversation with the energy of someone who had been waiting for permission to enter it and had decided permission was no longer necessary.“Stop pretending,” she sa
Chapter 304
David looked at Elizabeth for a long moment and the amusement that had been sitting on his face since the beginning of this conversation did not leave. If anything it settled deeper, became more comfortable, like a man who has found a chair that fits him perfectly and has no intention of getting up.“You are confused,” he said, and his voice was calm and almost gentle in the way that is not gentle at all, the way that is designed to make the other person feel small without using a single word that could be directly called cruel, “And honestly, I have been standing here watching it and I will not pretend I am not enjoying it, because I am.” He tilted his head slightly, just enough to make the observation feel deliberate, “But let me say something to you that I think you genuinely need to hear.”He was not laughing anymore but the ease was still there, that infuriating unbothered quality that had always been one of the most maddening things about him.“Nobody is tracking you,” he said
Chapter 305
Immediately Victoria turned to her with her eyes wide and her mouth slightly open, the look of someone who has just heard something they genuinely cannot process.“Let him go,” she repeated, and it came out less like a question and more like she was testing the words to see if they would make more sense the second time, “You want me to let him go. After everything he just stood there and said to us? The threats, the disrespect, all of it, and you are telling me to just let him walk away?”Elizabeth turned to look at her and her face was calm in a way that had clearly been decided, not the calm of someone who was not affected but the calm of someone who had already moved past the feeling and landed somewhere more practical.“Yes,” she said, and her voice was even and certain, “Let him go. I mean it.” She glanced briefly toward the entrance where David had disappeared and then back at Victoria, “He is going to make a move. I can feel it, and I know him well enough to know that when he d
Chapter 306
The meeting room was the kind that hotels like this one reserved for people, like Festus's quietly expensive, with low warm lighting and a long table that had been polished to a mirror finish and chairs that cost more than most people's monthly rent. Everything about it said that the conversations held here mattered.Mr. Festus was already seated when they walked in, his jacket buttoned, his posture easy but alert, the posture of a man who had been in enough important rooms to know how to occupy one without performing for it.Elizabeth saw him the moment she stepped through the door and she did not miss a beat."I am so sorry," she said immediately, and she said it with the kind of sincerity that does not grovel but is genuine enough to be felt, moving toward him with her hand extended and her eyes direct, "Keeping you waiting was not my intention at all. Something came up on our way in, something that needed to be dealt with right then, and it took a moment longer than I would have l
Chapter 307
Elizabeth let a small composed smile settle onto her face before she spoke, the smile of someone who has walked into rooms like this one enough times to know how to read them and how to fill them."It is not something complicated," she began, and she kept her voice easy and unhurried, the tone of someone who is confident enough in what they are offering not to rush it, "And I will not waste your time dressing it up in more words than it needs." She shifted forward just slightly in her chair, closing the distance across the table by a fraction, just enough to signal that what was coming mattered, "What I have in front of me right now is an investment opportunity. And when I say opportunity I do not mean the kind that comes around regularly and waits patiently for you to get to it. I mean the kind that has a window, a real one, and when that window closes it does not reopen." She held his gaze steadily, "It is large. Larger than the last one we worked on together and that one was not sm
Chapter 308
Elizabeth heard what Festus said and for just a fraction of a second, just the smallest pause between one breath and the next, something clicked into place behind her eyes.She understood now.This was not purely about the investment, or at least it was not only about the investment. Victoria had said it outside before they even walked through the door and Elizabeth had filed it away as possibility but here it was, sitting across the table from her in a tailored jacket with careful eyes and a question that was doing two things at once.She looked at him.He was not what she would call an unpleasant prospect. He was older than her, yes, but not in a way that diminished him, more in a way that had refined him, the way certain things get better and more certain of themselves with time. He had connections that most people spent entire careers trying to build. He had resources that were not theoretical. And the way he was looking at her right now, with that particular blend of business int
Chapter 309
Immediately Victoria felt the smile before she could stop it, not the small controlled one from earlier but something broader and warmer that she had to actively pull back before it became obvious. She settled it quickly into something more appropriate for a meeting room and folded her hands in her lap and looked at a point just slightly to the left of the table's center.But inside she was absolutely certain.Elizabeth had him.Not halfway, not almost, completely. The trap had been set with such a light touch that the man sitting across the table had walked into it feeling like the whole thing had been his idea, and that, Victoria knew from long experience, was the most effective kind.Elizabeth herself felt it too, that quiet electric certainty that settles in the chest when something is working exactly the way you designed it to work. But she did not let it change anything about her face or her posture or the measured unhurried quality of her voice. This was precisely the moment wh