Chapter 9: The Collateral
Elena’s heart hammered violently against her ribs. The word collateral echoed in her ears, turning her blood to ice. She looked from Marcus on the stairs to David, whose expression had shifted from furious to something dangerously desperate.
"What is he talking about, David? What debts?!" Elena screamed, abandoning her whispered caution as pure panic took over her voice.
David held up a hand without turning around, his eyes never leaving Marcus.
"Stay back, Elena. This has nothing to you or the baby. This is between me and him," David said tightly.
Marcus laughed again, taking another heavy step down the old wooden stairs until he was standing in the dim light of the second-floor landing, just a few feet away from David.
"Oh, it has everything to do with them, David. When a man borrows a quarter of a million dollars from dangerous people to fund a failing tech startup and then skips town with a fake identity, people tend to want their return on investment," Marcus said smoothly, his eyes drifting past David to land squarely on Elena and the baby in her arms.
Elena felt the room spin. A quarter of a million dollars? Fake identity? The man she had been married to for five years, the father of her child, was a stranger with a dark, hidden past she knew nothing about.
"Is that true?" Elena whispered, her voice hollow as she stared at the back of David’s dark blue button-down shirt. "David, tell me he's lying."
David didn't deny it. He closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, the admission hanging heavily in the tense space between them.
"I did what I had to do to protect us back then," David said, his voice strained and defensive as he turned slightly toward his wife.
"Protect us by dragging us into the middle of a nightmare?" Elena sobbed, tears finally spilling over her lashes.
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Marcus smiled, pulling his hand out of his jacket pocket. In his grip wasn't a gun, but a small, heavy black thumb drive—the exact model used to back up home security systems and private financial records.
"Clara wasn't just a scout, David. She was my inside woman. And she already downloaded every single bank account number, offshore asset, and digital key to your encrypted accounts before you fired her," Marcus said, holding the drive up to the dim light with a triumphant grin.
