Chapter Sixteen – Marcus’s Past Unraveled
The Brooklyn café was half-empty, the kind of place where the air smelled like burnt espresso and secrets. Catherine slid into the booth, tugging her sleeves down to hide the hospital wristband she still hadn’t taken off. Marcus was already there, hands wrapped around a mug he hadn’t touched, eyes fixed on the door as if he expected Caleb to burst in at any second.
He didn’t waste time.
“I know you’re looking into him,” Marcus said. “Caleb.”
Catherine stiffened. “I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to.” His voice was low, rough. “I recognize the look. It’s the same one I had before everything in my life went to hell.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it. There was something haunted in his eyes—something she hadn’t seen before.
“Marcus… what happened to you?”
He exhaled, a long, jagged breath.
“You know the tech startup I used to run? The one people said failed because I ‘mismanaged funds’?” He made air quotes like the words burned him.
“It didn’t fail. It was stolen.”
Catherine froze.
“By Caleb,” he said. “He took my prototype, my pitch deck, my entire concept. Then he fed the investors lies about me. I woke up one morning to empty accounts and a dozen legal threats.” His jaw clenched. “I didn’t just lose a company. I lost five years of work. I lost the version of myself that still believed in people.”
Her pulse kicked.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you need to know who you’re dealing with.” He leaned forward, voice dropping to a whisper. “Caleb doesn’t destroy people by accident. He destroys them because he can.”
A chill rippled up her spine.
“Marcus, he… he might have done something to me too.”
Marcus didn’t even blink. “Of course he did.”
The certainty in his voice made her stomach twist.
He pushed a folder across the table.
Inside were screenshots, documents, timelines—receipts of a life dismantled.
“I’ve been collecting evidence for months,” Marcus said. “Waiting for the right moment. But I can’t take him down alone.” He met her gaze, steady and deliberate.
“You have motive. I have information. Together, we might actually stand a chance.”
Catherine stared at the folder, her hands trembling.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “This feels like… a war.”
“It is,” Marcus said softly. “You’re already in it. Caleb made sure of that.”
Outside, a siren wailed somewhere in the distance, slicing through the quiet. Catherine swallowed hard, feeling the weight of her choices settle like stones in her chest.
“I’m not asking you to trust me,” Marcus said, “just to stop letting him ruin your life.”
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. The café hummed around them, oblivious.
Finally, she closed the folder and met his eyes.
“If we do this,” Catherine said, “we do it carefully.”
A slow, grim smile pulled at Marcus’s mouth.
“Carefully,” he agreed. “And without mercy.”