The Billionaire I Was Meant To Hate

Chapter 16: Where Marcus Was

POV: Aria

Damian had a car outside my building in eleven minutes, which meant he'd been ready to move before I finished

telling him what the caller said.

"His apartment first," Damian said, already pulling into traffic. "If he's not there, security can pull his badge activity for

the last hour."

"And if his father got to him first?"

Damian's hands tightened on the wheel, just slightly. "Then we deal with that when we know it's true. Not before."

Marcus's apartment was on the twenty-second floor of a building three blocks from Blackwood Tower, close enough

that I understood, walking into the lobby, just how much of his life had been built around staying near his family instead

of away from it.

He answered the door on the second knock, and the relief that went through me at the sight of him standing

upright, unhurt, still in yesterday's clothes, was sharp enough that I had to take a breath before I trusted my voice.

"You didn't answer your phone."

"I turned it off." Marcus stepped back to let us in, and up close I could see he hadn't slept — hollow-eyed, a half-empty

glass of something amber on the counter behind him. "My father called eleven times in twenty minutes. I didn't want to

hear whatever he had to say until I'd figured out what I was going to say back."

"Someone called me tonight," I said. "They told me to ask you where your father was."

Marcus went very still. "What else did they say?"

"Nothing else. Just that."

He set the glass down and rubbed both hands over his face. "I don't know where he is. He left the house before I

got there. My mother said he took a bag."

"A bag," Damian repeated.

"Like he was leaving for a while." Marcus's voice cracked on the last word. "I think he knows I gave you the authorization

form. I think he's running."

"Or he's regrouping," Damian said. "Which is worse, honestly, because a man who's running is trying to disappear. A

man who's regrouping is trying to finish something."

The room went quiet except for the hum of the refrigerator and the distant sound of traffic twenty-two floors down.

"There's something else," Marcus said finally, and something in his tone made both of us go still. "The call I overheard,

the one where he said 'our insurance' — I've been trying to remember every detail since. There was a second name. I

only caught part of it. Something like — " He frowned, chasing the memory. "Voss. Or Vance. I couldn't be sure."

"Sophie can run both," I said, already reaching for my phone.

"There's one more thing." Marcus finally looked at Damian directly, something rawer in his expression than I'd seen

from him yet. "My father said something else on that call. He said, 'If she gets to the sixth name before we do, it's over

for both of us.'"

Damian's jaw tightened. "Both of us."

"I don't think he meant you and him," Marcus said quietly. "I think he meant himself and whoever this Voss or Vance

actually is."