Nadia's POV
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I stare at my phone screen and read the name one more time.
Marcus Steele.
Primary owner of the shell company. The one that received Ethan's transfer. The one used to acquire my father's business.
My legs start moving before my brain finishes processing. I'm walking fast down the hallway, away from my mother's room, away from the nurses' station, into a corner where the corridor turns and no one can see my face right now because I don't know what my face is doing.
I press my back against the wall.
Okay. Think.
Marcus Steele owns the company that bought my father's debt. Marcus Steele engineered the acquisition of Holloway Industries. Marcus Steele then walked into this hospital, found me sitting on a floor, and offered to fix everything he broke — in exchange for my signature on a marriage contract.
I signed it forty minutes ago.
My hand is shaking now. First time all day. I press it flat against my thigh and breathe through my nose and think about what I know versus what I'm assuming, because those are two very different things and I cannot afford to confuse them right now.
What I know: his name is on that company.
What I don't know: why.
What I don't know: what he actually wants.
What I do know: I signed something legal and binding with a man who has been moving pieces around a board that includes my family's name, and I didn't know he was the one moving them.
I push off the wall. I'm going to find him. I'm going to look him in the face and I'm going to ask him directly and I'm going to watch his eyes when he answers, because eyes don't lie the way mouths do.
I walk back to the consultation room.
Empty. He's gone.
I go to the nurses' station. "The man who was just here — tall, dark coat — which way did he go?"
The nurse points toward the elevator.
I press the button. I wait. The elevator takes fourteen seconds to arrive and I count every one of them.
-
I catch him in the lobby.
He's almost at the door, phone to his ear, when I say his name. Not loudly. I don't need loud. I need clear.
"Marcus."
He turns. His face does that thing — that closed-door, unreadable thing. But something flickers behind it when he sees my expression. Something that might be the tiniest edge of surprise.
He says something brief into the phone and lowers it.
"You found something," he says. Not a question.
"D. Vance," I say. I keep my voice even. "Shell company. Created four months ago. You're the primary owner."
He looks at me for three full seconds.
"Yes," he says.
Just that. Just yes.
I had prepared myself for denial. For confusion. For the carefully constructed lie that men like him would have ready for exactly this moment. The simple, clean confirmation knocks the breath out of me faster than any lie would have.
"You took my father's company," I say.
"I acquired the debt," he says. "That's not the same thing."
"It felt the same to him," I say. "It felt the same to me four hours ago when he called me crying."
Something moves across Marcus's face. It's fast and he controls it quickly, but I see it. It looks almost like pain. I file that away.
"I need you to explain," I say. "Right now. Not tomorrow. Not when I understand in time. Now."
He looks around the lobby. Then he says, "Not here."
"Then where?"
"My car," he says. "Five minutes. If you still want to tear up the contract after I explain, I won't stop you."
I follow him out.
-
His car is black and quiet and the privacy screen between us and the driver goes up before either of us speaks.
Marcus sits across from me and for the first time, I see him think about how to begin. That's new. Every other time he's spoken tonight, the words were ready. Now he's choosing them.
That tells me whatever comes next is true.
"Your grandfather built Holloway Industries from nothing," he starts. "When your father took over, the company went through a crisis — bad investments, a market shift, a year where everything went wrong at once. He needed fast money and bad lawyers gave him a fast solution. He signed an agreement that buried your inheritance. Your rightful controlling share of the company. Gone on paper, still legally yours in a way that no one has ever properly challenged."
I'm very still.
"I found the documentation three years ago," he continues. "In a separate acquisition that had nothing to do with your family. The trail just crossed mine. I could have ignored it."
"But you didn't," I say.
"No."
"Why?"
He looks at me directly. "Because six months ago, I learned that another party was about to purchase your father's debt. Someone who knew about the heirship and planned to use it to strip every remaining Holloway asset permanently. No buyback option. No legal path. Just gone."
My mouth is dry. "Who?"
"A consortium connected to Ethan's mother's side of the family," he says.
The car feels smaller suddenly.
"So you bought it first," I say slowly. "You bought my father's debt before they could."
"Yes."
"And the acquisition — destroying my father's company — that was to prevent something worse."
"The acquisition preserved the legal structure," he says. "I own the debt. Which means I control what happens to it. Which means I can return it."
I stare at him. "Return it."
"The inheritance claim is still valid. The shell company exists to protect the asset legally while the claim is prepared. With the right attorney and the right position, you can take back controlling ownership of Holloway Industries." He pauses. "But a claim like that requires the person making it to have standing. Resources. A legal team. Protection from the people who will fight it."
"And a last name that carries weight," I say quietly.
He doesn't answer. He doesn't need to.
I look down at my hands. The hand that signed the contract. The hand that's been steady all night until twenty minutes ago.
"You've been planning this," I say. "All of it. The contract. The timing. You walked into that hospital tonight because everything was in place."
"Yes," he says.
"And my mother's care?" I say. "The anonymous donor. Two years of payments." I look up at him. "That was you too."
The silence that follows is the longest one of the night.
"Yes," he says.
I don't speak for a long time. I'm doing the math again, but this time the numbers are people and motives and a man who has been making decisions about my life from a distance for two years without my knowledge.
He gave my mother two years of care.
He blocked the people who would have taken everything.
He built a legal path back to what is mine.
And he did all of it without telling me. Without asking me. Without giving me the choice.
I look at him.
"I need to ask you something," I say. "And I need you to answer me honestly."
"All right," he says.
"Is there anything else about my life that you know, that I don't know you know?"
Marcus holds my gaze.
And the silence that follows is so long, so carefully controlled, that it is its own answer.
There is something else.
Something he hasn't told me yet.
Something bigger than all of this.