Victor’s hands began to shake under the table, but he forced a tight, diplomatic smile. He knew he had to play the game, or lose everything. But what Marcus didn't know was that Victor had spent the last five years ensuring that the true rot inside Vanguard was buried deep—and if Marcus dug too close to it, Victor was fully prepared to destroy him too.
Marcus didn’t fire them.
That was the first thing that sent panic rippling through the executive floor. Anyone else would have security escort Victor and Derek out of the building immediately. But Marcus was a man who had built his own logistics empire from scratch on the East Coast; he understood that cutting off the head of a snake didn’t kill the venom already in the bloodstream.
Instead, he moved into the corner office and started requesting files.
Old files. Audit reports from three years ago. Property acquisition ledgers. Employee termination records.
Derek was furious, pacing back and forth in Victor’s office. “You’re just going to let him sit there? He’s humiliating us! He made me cancel my yacht club membership because it was a ‘company expense’!”
“Shut up and sit down,” Victor snapped, closing the blinds. “He’s playing a game. He thinks he can find the offshore accounts. But he can’t. The only person who knew how those numbers were cooked was Darius, and Darius is gone.”
Victor thought the conversation was private. But he didn't realize that standard corporate protocol dictated that the new CEO’s office received a daily log of all internal keycard swipes. Marcus was already looking at the data. He noticed a pattern. Every time he requested a specific financial quarter’s report, a mid-level auditor named Maya accessed the archives just minutes before the files were delivered to him.
Late that evening, Marcus walked down to the accounting floor. It was empty, except for one desk lamp burning in the corner. Maya was frantically copying files onto an encrypted flash drive.
She froze when the shadow fell over her desk.
“You’re doctoring the reports before they reach my desk,” Marcus said quietly.
Maya looked up, terrified. “No,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “I’m restoring the original numbers. The ones Victor ordered me to delete three years ago.”
Marcus pulled up a chair and sat across from her. “Why didn’t you go to the police? Why didn't you go to my father?”