Chapter 72: Trust-Building

Marcus's POV

The room doesn’t breathe again for a long time.

Bella’s words hang in the air like smoke after a firework—sharp, unexpected, impossible to ignore. My hand is still wrapped around Anna’s, her thumb pressing into my knuckles in a way that says stay here, don’t spiral, I’ve got you.

I need it. Because everything in me wants to explode.

“Say it again,” I say finally, my voice low and controlled in a way that scares even me. “Slowly.”

Bella doesn’t flinch. To her credit, she doesn’t dramatize it either.

“My father planned this,” she says. “Not overnight. Not sloppily. He’s been positioning himself for months. McKay Enterprises was never supposed to fail on its own—it was supposed to collapse just enough to be absorbed.”

Peter lets out a sharp laugh, humorless and incredulous. “So the fact stands that the merger and our subsequent engagements weren’t a byproduct. It was a weapon.”

Bella’s sister swallows hard. “We think so.”

I shift in my chair, knee aching faintly as if reminding me that consequences aren’t theoretical anymore. They’re physical. They’re human.

“Why tell us now?” Damian asks. His voice is calm, but I know that tone. It’s the one he uses when he’s deciding whether someone leaves this house with information—or regret.

Bella meets his eyes. “Because I watched your father almost die.”

That lands harder than anything else she’s said.

“And because,” she continues, her voice tightening, “I realized that whatever game my father is playing… it doesn’t stop. It just moves on to the next body.”

The room goes silent again. I rub a hand over my face, trying to align the pieces in my head. Ramsey. Consulting subsidiaries. Rushed approvals. A competitor collapsing at exactly the right moment.

It’s horrifying. It’s also… clean. Too clean to be accidental.

“If you’re right,” I say slowly, “then my father wasn’t just negligent. He was manipulated.”

“Yes,” Bella says. “And now my father gets to play the concerned partner while watching McKay Enterprises bleed out.”

Peter curses under his breath. “That bastard.”

Anna shifts beside me. “If this is true,” she says carefully, “then the investigation timeline won’t hold. There will be digital footprints. Patterns.”

Courtney nods. “And financial anomalies. Takeover attempts always leave fingerprints, even when they’re careful.”

Damian exhales, dragging a hand down his face. “This explains why Ramsey stormed out of Dad’s office like that.”

“He didn’t get what he wanted,” Peter adds. “Not yet.”

I look at Bella. “You said you know where to look.”

She nods. “My father’s private server. He’s paranoid. Keeps redundancies. Voice memos. Backups.”

“And you can access it?” Damian asks.

Bella hesitates—just for a second. “I know the passwords. Or at least… I know how he builds them.”

“That’s not the same thing,” Peter says flatly.

Bella’s jaw tightens. “I know the risk.”

“So do we,” I reply.

I lean forward, bracing my forearms on my knees. The weight of everything—my injury, my father in a hospital bed, a company on the brink—presses down hard, but something inside me steadies.

For once, the chaos has a shape.

“If we do this,” I say, “we do it right. No leaks. No solo heroics. Everything goes through legal counsel.”

Courtney snaps her fingers. “I know someone.”

Of course she does.

Damian nods slowly. “And Dad?”

The question is heavier than the rest. I think of him in that hospital bed. Pale. Shaken. Human in a way I’ve never seen him.

“We don’t tell him yet,” I say. “Not until we know. He doesn’t need another hit right now.”

Anna squeezes my hand. “Agreed.”

Bella swallows. “If I do this… there's no going back and....am I forgiven for past mistakes?.”

I look at her then—really look at her. Not the girl who once wielded cruelty like currency. Not the daughter of a monster. Just a person standing at a fault line.

“You don’t owe us redemption,” I say. “But if you’re telling the truth, this could stop a lot of damage.”

Her eyes shine. “That’s the point.”

Damian straightens. “Then here’s how this works. You don’t act alone. You don’t access anything without a lawyer present. And if at any point you feel compromised, you walk.”

Bella nods. “Understood.”

Peter smirks faintly. “Wow. Look at us. Trust-building.”

The tension cracks—just a little.

Later, after Bella and her sisters leave with instructions and burner phones Courtney somehow already had, the house settles into a quieter kind of intensity. Anna helps me shift my leg more comfortably, adjusting the ice pack with gentle efficiency. When our eyes meet, I see it—the worry she’s been holding back so I don’t have to carry it too.

“You okay?” she asks softly.

“I think,” I say, “this might be the first time in weeks that I don’t feel completely blind.”

She smiles faintly. “Good.”

Damian leans against the doorway. “You did good back there.”

I snort. “I didn’t throw anyone out.”

“Growth,” Peter says, tossing himself onto the couch.

The night stretches on as we map contingencies, timelines, legal channels. For once, my injury doesn’t feel like a liability—it’s given me distance. Perspective. I’m not reacting on instinct. I’m thinking.

Strategizing.

By the time everyone starts drifting off, the plan is clear.

Step one: corroborate Bella’s claims discreetly.

Step two: loop in independent counsel.

Step three: prepare to protect my father—and the company—from a hostile takeover masquerading as concern.

I head upstairs last, moving carefully on my crutches. Anna follows, quiet as a shadow.

At my door, she stops me.

“Marcus,” she says.

I turn.

“I know you’re holding a lot right now,” she continues. “Your dad. Your body. This… mess.”

I nod. “Yeah.”

She steps closer, resting her forehead against my chest, just above where my heart is still beating strong and stubborn.

“You don’t have to be unbreakable,” she murmurs. “You just have to be honest.”

I close my eyes.

For the first time since this started, I let myself feel it all—the fear, the anger, the grief, the strange flicker of hope.

“I don’t know how this ends,” I admit.

She tilts her head up, eyes steady. “Neither do I. But I know who you are in it.”

As she heads to the guest room, I sit on the edge of my bed, staring out the window into the dark.

My life isn’t the one I thought it would be. The ice beneath my skates cracked. The ground beneath my family shifted.m The legacy I was supposed to inherit revealed its rot.

But in the wreckage, something else is emerging.

Truth.

Choice.

And a future that isn’t handed to me—but built.

Whatever happens next—whatever Ramsey’s been hiding, whatever the investigation uncovers, whatever my body allows me to do—I know this:

I’m not playing defense anymore. I’m taking control of my own game.

And this time, I won’t look away.