Chapter 14 - The Secret Meeting
Nobody spoke for several seconds.
Claire was the first.
“You met Victor?”
Derek nodded.
“Where?”
“A hotel bar downtown.”
Thomas Bennett arrived twenty minutes later with Arthur Davies and two cybersecurity specialists.
The mood inside Marcus’s office had changed from corporate crisis to criminal investigation.
Derek sat at one end of the conference table.
Thomas sat opposite him.
“Start talking,” Thomas said.
Derek did.
Two months earlier, a man calling himself Victor Hale had approached Derek after a dealership awards dinner.
Victor knew everything about him.
His sales numbers.
Mortgage.
Gambling debts.
Commission disputes.
Even Derek’s resentment toward Marcus.
“He said Meridian might buy Apex,” Derek explained. “He told me people loyal to the old management would probably be replaced.”
Noah stared at him.
“And?”
“He offered me protection.”
“In exchange for what?” Arthur asked.
“Information.”
Derek swallowed.
“Customer volume. Lending partners. Employee complaints. Marcus’s weaknesses.”
Marcus looked ready to explode.
“You gave him internal records?”
“No.”
“You just said—”
“I talked. I didn’t send files.”
Thomas’s voice turned cold.
“What exactly did you tell him?”
Derek looked ashamed.
“That Marcus was terrified of bad publicity.”
Claire immediately understood.
“The video.”
Derek shook his head.
“I didn’t give him footage.”
“But you told him what would hurt Apex.”
“Yes.”
Thomas leaned back.
“Continue.”
Victor had also asked about Bennett Capital.
Derek knew almost nothing.
But he had mentioned something else.
“Claire.”
Thomas’s face hardened.
Derek rushed to explain.
“I didn’t know who she was then. Victor asked whether rich families ever sent relatives into dealerships dressed casually to test service standards.”
Claire stared at him.
“You told him about that?”
“I said it happens.”
“Anything else?”
Derek hesitated.
Thomas’s voice sharpened.
“Anything else?”
“He asked whether Thomas Bennett had children.”
The room froze.
Derek looked at Claire.
“I said I’d heard he had a daughter who stayed out of the press.”
Claire felt a cold sensation run down her spine.
Victor had known she existed before the showroom incident.
Arthur asked, “Did Victor contact you after you were fired?”
Derek nodded.
“Twice.”
Everyone leaned forward.
“What did he want?”
“For me to go public.”
Claire frowned.
“About Apex?”
“About your father.”
Thomas didn’t move.
Derek pulled out his phone.
“I saved the messages.”
Arthur read them.
The first offered Derek fifty thousand dollars for an interview claiming Thomas Bennett had threatened employees and abused his financial power.
The second offered seventy-five thousand if Derek said Claire had deliberately provoked the confrontation to manufacture a reason to seize the dealership.
Marcus whispered, “That’s insane.”
“It doesn’t have to be true,” Claire said. “It only has to spread.”
Thomas looked at Derek.
“You refused?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Derek’s face twisted.
“Because I did what I did.”
He pointed toward Claire.
“She didn’t provoke me.”
For the first time, Thomas looked at him without contempt.
Derek continued.
“I destroyed the card because I was arrogant. Mr. Bennett threatened the lease because he was furious after learning what happened. Nobody staged anything.”
Arthur copied the messages.
“These may help establish a pattern.”
The cybersecurity specialist interrupted.
“We found the intrusion source.”
Everyone turned.
“It entered using a management credential.”
Marcus went pale.
“Whose?”
The specialist looked uncomfortable.
“Yours.”
Marcus stood.
“Impossible.”
“Your password authenticated at 11:43 this morning.”
“I was in this room.”
Noah suddenly asked, “Who has access to Marcus’s office?”
Marcus looked toward the glass wall.
His executive assistant.
Senior managers.
Cleaning staff.
IT.
Then Derek spoke.
“Victor didn’t need the password.”
They looked at him.
Derek pointed toward Marcus’s desk.
“Two years ago Marcus kept his recovery codes in the bottom-right drawer.”
Marcus’s face drained.
Noah rushed to the drawer.
Empty.
Thomas immediately called security.
Claire moved toward the window.
Down in the parking lot, a black sedan was reversing rapidly from an executive space.
“Noah.”
He followed her gaze.
A woman hurried from the building and jumped into the passenger seat.
Marcus stared.
“That’s Jennifer.”
His executive assistant.
The sedan accelerated away.
Arthur was already calling authorities.
Then Claire’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
She answered.
“Hello?”
A man’s voice came through.
Smooth.
Cultured.
Amused.
“Claire Bennett.”
Her entire body went still.
Thomas looked at her.
The voice continued.
“You look very much like your mother.”
Claire’s hand tightened around the phone.
“Victor.”
Thomas stood instantly.
Victor laughed softly.
“Tell your father I’m looking forward to finishing our old conversation.”
The line went dead.
Thomas stared at Claire.
But she was thinking about one sentence.
Not Apex.
Not Meridian.
Not money.
You look very much like your mother.
May you like
Claire’s mother had been dead for nineteen years.
And somehow Victor Hale had just made the war personal.
