Chapter 6 - The Price of Telling the Truth
Marcus Bell came to the hospital wearing a navy suit and the offended expression of a man inconvenienced by someone else’s conscience.
Police stopped him before he reached June’s floor.
Dante met him in a conference room with attorneys present.
Ruiz waited nearby.
Marcus looked around.
“Is this necessary?”
“Yes,” Dante said.
“I’ve spent nine years keeping your companies solvent.”
“Then you should have records.”
Marcus’s jaw tightened.
“You’re making a mistake.”
Dante had heard that sentence often enough to recognize when it meant something else.
You are becoming difficult to control.
His attorney placed a document on the table.
A preservation notice.
Marcus read it without sitting.
“This is because of a secretary?”
Dante’s expression changed.
His lawyer touched the edge of the folder.
A quiet reminder.
Words first.
Evidence.
Consequences handled lawfully.
Dante drew a breath.
“This is because money disappeared, employees were discredited, and a woman was poisoned while you helped the people responsible keep access to her.”
Marcus gave a short laugh.
“You don’t know what I helped.”
“Then explain it to investigators.”
“I want my attorney.”
The meeting ended there.
By afternoon, Marcus had been removed from his financial access through the company’s formal emergency procedures.
The board was furious.
Some members feared losing investments.
Others feared questions.
A few, to Dante’s surprise, asked how June was doing.
He remembered their names.
The next week became a procession of difficult rooms.
He met with lawyers before meeting investigators.
He disclosed activities his wealth had long insulated him from examining closely.
Not every business was corrupt.
Not every employee had known.
But enough had been done under his authority that he could not pretend to be a bystander.
He had used intimidation.
Approved dishonest arrangements.
Allowed intermediaries to make problems disappear without asking what that meant.
His cooperation might matter.
It would not erase responsibility.
When he explained that to June, she listened from the sofa in a temporary apartment arranged through her own attorney.
She had been discharged with a treatment and monitoring plan, follow-up appointments, and more uncertainty than either of them wanted.
Wren was staying with her.
Security arrangements were coordinated with police and approved by June.
Dante had not been given a key.
He was grateful to be invited through the door.
“Will you go to prison?” she asked.
“It’s possible.”
“Don’t say possible if your attorney said likely.”
He looked down.
“She said I should prepare for a sentence involving time in custody.”
June absorbed that.
Outside, rain tapped against the windows.
“I’m scared,” she said.
“So am I.”
It was the first time he had said it without turning the admission into anger.
She looked at him.
“For yourself?”
“Yes.”
He paused.
“And for you. For the baby. For what I’ve already done.”
June nodded slowly.
“I needed an honest answer.”
He sat across from her.
“There’s something else. The company will cover the medical costs related to what happened, through your attorney. There won’t be a condition about silence. Or work. Or me.”
“My lawyer already told me.”
“Good.”
“And I’m not coming back as your assistant.”
“I didn’t expect you to.”
“I’m saying it anyway.”
“You should.”
She drew her knees beneath a blanket.
“I used to think knowing everything you needed made me important to you.”
Dante’s throat tightened.
“You were important.”
“Then why did I feel so replaceable?”
He had rehearsed answers to investigators.
Dates.
Amounts.
Names.
None felt as hard as this.
“Because I valued what you did for me before I learned how to value you.”
June looked away.
He let her.
After a while, she said, “That’s a terrible answer.”
“I know.”
“It’s also the first one I believe.”
His phone vibrated.
He ignored it.
Then June’s phone rang.
Ruiz.
She answered on speaker after checking with Dante.
The detective’s voice was steady.
“Roland contacted someone we’ve been monitoring. We believe he’s arranging to leave through a private freight facility.”
Dante leaned forward.
“Which one?”
Ruiz paused.
“Mr. Voss, you are not joining this operation.”
He closed his mouth.
Beside him, June watched his face.
The old instinct rose immediately.
Take control.
Go there.
Finish it himself.
Then he looked at her.
At the blanket over her knees.
At the woman whose life had nearly ended because powerful men kept appointing themselves the only answer.
“Understood,” he said.
Ruiz continued with the safety arrangements.
June’s hand moved across the sofa.
Not quite reaching.
Dante waited.
Then she took his hand.
May you like
For once, staying felt harder than fighting.
He stayed anyway.
