Chapter 10 - The Reckoning in the Master Suite
Victoria forced a shaky, theatrical laugh, taking two tentative steps toward Marcus while holding her hands out in a posture of helpless innocence. “Marcus, darling! Thank goodness you’re back,” she breathed, her voice dripping with artificial sweetness as she tried to bridge the physical distance between them. “The security system went haywire this morning, and those dreadful people downstairs locked me in this room—you have to believe me, Robert must have gone rogue, he was trying to frame me—” Marcus did not stop walking; he advanced across the plush Persian rug with slow, measured, terrifying steps until he stood towering directly over her, his dark eyes boring straight through her manufactured facade. “Stop talking, Victoria,” Marcus said, his voice dropping into a low, dead whisper that carried more menace than a screaming match ever could. He slowly pulled the tablet from his coat pocket, tapped the screen twice, and dropped it onto the glass surface of the vanity table right in front of her face. The audio recording of her phone conversation with Robert played aloud at maximum volume, echoing clearly off the marble walls of the suite, followed immediately by the high-definition video of Robert raiding the corporate archives in the sub-basement. Victoria’s face drained of every single drop of color, her knees buckling slightly as she grabbed the edge of the vanity to steady herself, her mouth opening and closing silently like a fish gasping for air.
