Justice of the Supreme War God

Chapter 24: The Deal Breaker PART 2

"I said I'm fine." She looked at the IV line with the expression of someone who found its presence personally offensive. "You can go."

"I'll stay."

"Marcus." Her voice was even. "I'm awake. I'm stable. The doctors are handling it. There is no reason for you to —"

"There is," he said simply, and moved to the chair beside the bed and sat in it with the settled, unhurried manner of someone who had made a decision and filed it.

Diana looked at the ceiling.

Catherine slipped back through the door and closed it behind her, and the room became a different, more complicated quiet.

"Diana." Catherine sat on the other side of the bed and took her daughter's hand with the specific tenderness of a woman who saved it for moments like this — genuine underneath everything else, whatever else could be said. "Listen to me. You need to think about what you're doing. What all of this is costing you."

"Mother —"

"The business," Catherine said, quietly now. No performance, no fury. Just the low, tired voice of a woman who had been managing fear as anger for several days and had temporarily run out of the energy to maintain the conversion. "Your firm. The Strong Inc contract. Everything you've built." She squeezed Diana's hand. "Ryan is still willing. Despite all of it. That means something, Diana. That means there's still a way out of this."

Diana said nothing.

"All you have to do," Catherine said, "is make a different choice. Before it's too late."

The room was very quiet.

Diana looked at the ceiling with the expression of a woman running calculations she didn't like the results of. The numbers kept coming back the same way. Lucas had the relationships. Reynolds was leaning toward the Steel offer. Four months of work sitting in a briefcase, traveling further from her with every passing hour.

She was still looking at the ceiling when she heard it.

Through the partially open door — a corridor conversation, conducted at the volume of people who considered a hospital hallway private space.

Liam's voice, carrying the specific satisfied energy of a man reporting good news to an appreciative audience.

"I'm heading to the office now. Reynolds is ready to finalize. We sign this afternoon and it's done." A brief, ugly laugh. "She'll have nothing left to argue with. Give it a week and she'll come running."

Ryan's response was lower, but the tone was audible even if the words weren't.

Liam again: "Morrison Accounting is finished. Let her figure that out from a hospital bed."

The door was not quite closed.

Marcus heard every word.

He sat in the chair for approximately four seconds after Liam's voice moved away down the corridor. Then he stood, straightened his jacket with two precise tugs, and looked at Diana.

She was still looking at the ceiling.

"I'll be back," Marcus said.

She didn't answer.

He walked out.

Strong Inc's headquarters security recognized him from Diana's previous visit.

They tried to stop him at the desk.

Marcus looked at the guard on the left — the same one who had made Diana wait — and said nothing. He simply looked at him, with the full, unfiltered attention of a man who has spent years in rooms considerably more dangerous than a corporate lobby, and something in the quality of that attention communicated itself to the guard's body before his brain had finished processing the decision.

The guard stepped back.

His colleague on the right picked up the desk phone, looked at Marcus, and put it back down.

Marcus walked to the elevator.

The fourteenth floor conference room had floor-to-ceiling glass on one side and a long table set for a signing. Reynolds was at the head of it. Liam was beside him with his jacket on and his pen out and the satisfied expression of a man finalizing something he had been looking forward to for several days.

Two Steel Holdings attorneys flanked Liam with document folders.

An assistant was pouring water.

The contract was on the table, open to the signature page.

Reynolds looked up when the conference room door opened.

Liam turned.

Marcus Hayes walked in, set his hand flat on the table between Liam and the contract, and looked at Carter Reynolds with the calm, direct expression of a man who has something to say and has budgeted exactly enough time to say it.

"Mr. Reynolds," he said. "Before you sign anything, there are a few things you should know."