Marcus Kane - The Street Rat husband : An Hidden God

Chapter 8: pressure

Marcus left before nine.

He took the keys from the hanger near the door, slipped something into his jacket pocket, and went out. The door closed with a soft click.

From the kitchen window, Diane watched the rental car back out of the parking space below and disappeared at the corner.

She said nothing.

Quinn was in her room with her laptop open, but the screen had not changed for the past half hour. The cursor blinked over an empty document. She stared at it as if it were something offensive.

An hour later, Edwin pushed his wheelchair to the kitchen doorway and stopped there.

Old habit. He always stopped at the doorway, as if waiting for permission that no one ever gave.

"Quinn."

She lifted her eyes from the screen.

"Can we talk?"

Quinn closed her laptop. "About what?"

Edwin glanced back. Diane appeared behind his wheelchair, standing with her arms crossed over her chest. Her face was calmer than this morning, but the swollen, damp face could not lie at all.

"Come in first," Quinn said.

They went in. Edwin brought his wheelchair near the window. Diane sat on the chair across from Quinn but kept her arms crossed, like a shield she had not allowed to lower.

No one spoke for a few seconds.

"Something you want to say?" Quinn asked.

Edwin and Diane exchanged glances.

Edwin started. "Victor called this morning."

Quinn did not move. "Victor called who?"

"Me." Edwin placed both his palms flat on his lap. "He said the offer for you still stands. A position at Sterling Corporation. The Langford Project. Full salary. He said everything yesterday didn't need to happen, and he regrets it."

"He asked you to persuade me."

Edwin did not answer. He only turned his face away, anywhere but his daughter's face.

"Victor knows you are the person most likely to make me change my mind," Quinn said. Her voice did not rise. Just flat, like someone explaining a map. "That's why he called you. Not Mom. You."

"Quinn—" Diane started.

"I'm not blaming Dad for picking up his call." Quinn opened her laptop again, then closed it again. "I just want all of us to know why this conversation is happening."

Silence.

Then Edwin sighed. "The situation has changed from yesterday, Quinn. The letter from Beaumont this morning—"

"I read that letter, Dad."

"I know you did. And I know you understand what it means." His voice had a kind of hardness that came from something very soft being forced to become hard. "Without Beaumont, my treatment stops. Not reduced. Completely stops. My doctor already said, without proper care, within—" He did not finish the sentence.

Quinn stared at the table in front of her.

"I'm not asking you to return to Sterling for Victor's sake," Edwin continued. "I'm asking you to consider it because—"

"Because you're afraid," Quinn said.

Edwin stared at his hands on his lap.

"That's normal," Quinn added, softer. "You're allowed to be afraid, Dad."

Diane leaned forward. "Quinn." Her tone was different from this morning. "I know you have pride. I know you don't want to look like you're giving in. But this is not about that."

"Then what is it about?"

"Your father." Diane uncrossed her arms, placing them on the table. "Victor can terminate Beaumont's contract. Victor can also restore that contract. If you go back, if you complete Langford, Beaumont won't dare touch us again. They don't want to lose the Sterling connection."

"You know it's not that simple."

"I know." Diane did not look away. "But it's still the only option on the table right now."

Quinn stood.

She walked to the sink, filled a glass with water from the tap, drank half of it without tasting it.

"If I go back to Sterling," she said softly, still looking at the window above the sink, "I go back under Victor's terms. I work under his supervision. The project I built for nine months gets completed with his family name on the contract. And after Langford is done, they will do the same thing they have planned from the beginning."

"But your father gets time—"

"Time for what?" Quinn set the glass down. "Time until Victor finds another way to pressure us? Until I have more things they can take?"

"Quinn." Edwin's voice cracked in the middle. "Please."

Two words.

Quinn pressed her palms flat against the counter and stared at its surface.

Too much had been asked of her.

For too long.

And she had always given it, because that was what she always did, because this family had no one else to rely on.

But this time, for the first time in a long while, she did not know the answer.

"Give me time," she said finally. "Until tonight. I need time."

Diane and Edwin exchanged glances again.

"Alright," Diane said at last. She stood, pushed Edwin's chair toward the hallway, and they left the kitchen without further words.

Quinn remained standing at the sink alone.

One hand still on the counter. The other hanging at her side, clenching, then opening, then clenching again.

---

Marcus returned at eight thirty at night.

The apartment was already quiet. Diane had gone to her room after a dinner that hardly anyone touched. Edwin was in the living room with the television on but the volume too low to truly watch.

Quinn was at the kitchen table. A cup of cold tea in front of her. Her laptop closed.

She heard the key enter the lock. The door opened. The sound of Edwin and Marcus exchanging a few short words in the living room. Then footsteps toward the kitchen.

Marcus entered and sat on the chair across from her.

Quinn raised her eyes.

"You didn't say where you were going," Quinn said.

"No."

A brief silence.

"Mom and Dad asked me to go back to Sterling today," she said. "Victor told them to."

"I heard from your father earlier."

Quinn slid her cup aside. "Victor knows the only way to force me is through them. He's not stupid."

"What did you say?"

"I asked for time until tonight." She looked at the table surface. "Now it's already night."

Marcus waited.

Quinn lifted her eyes. "I don't know what to do, Marcus." The words came out softer than she intended. "If I go back to Sterling, this is over. I know that. Victor won't stop after Langford. But if I don't go, seventy-two hours run out and—"

She did not finish the sentence.

No need.

"And my father doesn't have much time," she said finally, her voice almost unchanged. "I—this is the first time I've felt this useless and powerless."

Marcus looked at her.

"I know," he said.

Quinn pressed both her hands flat against the table surface, looking at him. "Mom already has her own decision. Dad has his own guilt. And I—" She stopped. Took a breath once. "I don't know. I'm useless."

Marcus did not answer immediately.

"Tell me what you found today," Quinn said. Her voice returned to flat. Focused forward. "You were gone all day. There must be something."

Marcus leaned back in his chair. Looked at his wife calmly. "Relax, like I said before."

"How can I stay calm at a time like this, Marcus? My father—my father... He—" Quinn's voice remained soft and controlled, but her eyes moved erratically, out of control.

"Trust me, Quinn. That's all. Just trust me."