Chapter 153 The favour

Chapter 153 The favour
Elma's POV

The phone rang twice before he picked up.

"Elma?" Marcus sounded surprised, which was fair, since I hadn't called him in over three years. "This is unexpected."
"Marcus, hi." I kept my voice light and casual. "Sorry to call out of nowhere."
"No, it's fine, just, I wasn't expecting to hear from you. How've you been?"

"Busy….you know how it is." I hesitated for half a second, choosing my words carefully. "Listen, I need to ask you something, and I know it's a strange way to bring it up after this long."
"Okayyyy." His voice shifted slightly.
"You remember that favor you owed me?" I hesitated for half a second, choosing my words carefully. "When your mom needed the surgery, and the hospital wouldn't move forward without the deposit, and you had nowhere else to turn?"

He paused before responding. "Yeah." He whispered. "Of course I remember.
"I need to cash that in." I said it plainly, no dressing it up. "I need your help with something.”

"Help with what, exactly?"

"I'd rather not get into it over the phone." I glanced toward my window, watching the city lights below. "Can we meet somewhere? Somewhere quiet, just the two of us."
"Elma, I don't know if I should…." He stopped himself, and I could hear him exhale slowly on the other end. "You know where I work now.”
"It's not going to put you in any trouble," I said quickly, cutting him off before he could talk himself out of it. "I promise. I just need to ask you a few questions….that's it. I'm not asking you to do anything that gets you fired.

The silence stretched again, I could practically hear him weighing it, the debt against whatever loyalty he'd built up in the years since. His mother was alive because of that deposit…We both knew it.
"Okay," he said finally, though his voice still carried some hesitation. "There's a coffee place two blocks from my office. Corner of Fifth and Bellmore. I can meet you there tomorrow, before work, if that's not too early."

"That works." Relief loosened in my chest. "Thank you, Marcus. I mean it."
"Yeah." He didn't sound entirely convinced yet, but he hadn't hung up either. "See you soon, I guess."
The line went dead, and I set my phone down slowly, staring at it for a long moment.

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"You look tired," Marcus said, sliding into the booth across from me, two coffees already in hand, one pushed toward me without asking.

"I've had a rough month." I wrapped my hands around the cup, grateful for something warm to hold. "Thanks for coming."
"You didn't exactly leave me much choice." He said it without bitterness, just fact, glancing around the mostly empty coffee shop like he was checking whether anyone recognized him. "So what's this about?"

"Adrian's trying to take my company." I said plainly, watching his expression carefully. "Quietly, through a shell company called Ashford Holdings. He's been buying up shares for months."
He went very still, I noticed it even if he tried to act normal.
"You know about it," I said. “Right?”
"Marcus." I called when he remained quiet.

He exhaled, glancing toward the window, his jaw tight. "I can't talk about his business dealings, Elma. You understand what you're asking me to do."
"I'm not asking you to hand me trade secrets." I leaned forward slightly. "I need something specific. Proof, anything, that ties him personally to Ashford Holdings. Emails, meeting notes, a signature, I don't care what form it takes. I have a gala coming up, investors, press, people whose opinion actually matters to him. I want to put it in front of all of them at once, before the shareholder vote."

"You want to humiliate him publicly."
"I want to stop him from taking everything I've built." My voice cracked slightly, I hated it but I let it sit there anyway. "This isn't about revenge, Marcus. This is survival."
He was quiet for a long moment, turning his cup slowly on the table. "Why should I risk my job for this," he said finally. "I have a good position there. Benefits and stability, for the first time in years."

"Because I was there when nobody else was." I kept my voice steady. "Your mother's alive because I didn't hesitate when you called me, panicking, with nowhere else to turn. I didn't ask you what you'd do for me someday…I just helped."
Something in his face shifted, guilt and gratitude tangled together.

"This isn't about bringing his whole company down," I continued. "I don't need Ashford Holdings destroyed, I don't need Adrian ruined. I just need him removed from my business, permanently, so I can actually run my own company without looking over my shoulder every single day. His investors don't need to know anything except that he tried something underhanded and got caught."
"And if he doesn't survive it?" Marcus asked quietly. "If this actually does hurt him, and he figures out I was the one who gave you something?"

"Then there's a place for you at my company." I met his eyes. "I mean that. Whatever happens on his end, you won't be left with nothing. I take care of people who help me."
He sat with that for a while, staring down at his coffee, and I let the silence stretch, resisting the urge to push further.
"You should be careful," he said finally, not quite agreeing yet, but softening. "Adrian doesn't do things halfway. If he even suspects someone close to him talked, he won't come after just you."

"I know the risk."

"Do you, though?" He looked up at me, something almost pitiful in his expression. "There's a reason nobody who's ever tried to move against him quietly has actually managed to pull it off. He always seems to know things before they happen. I've seen it more times than I can count."

I stared at him. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying." He hesitated, glancing around the coffee shop again before lowering his voice further. "If you're going to do this, don't loop in more people than you absolutely have to. Don't plan it too far in advance, don't let it sit on paper anywhere, don't even talk about it out loud more than necessary. The fewer people who know the exact shape of the plan before it happens, the better your odds."

I nodded slowly, filing that away, though something about the specificity of the warning made my pulse pick up. He wasn't just being cautious, he sounded like someone who'd watched this exact scenario play out before, more than once, and never once seen it end well for the person trying to move against Adrian.

"Okay," I said. "I'll be careful."
"I hope so." He finally reached into his jacket, pulling out a folded piece of paper, sliding it across the table toward me without meeting my eyes. "This is everything I'm willing to give you. It's enough to tie him to Ashford Holdings, if you know how to use it right. Don't ask me for anything else after this."

I took it, my fingers trembling slightly as I tucked it away. "Thank you, Marcus."

"Don't thank me yet," he said, already sliding out of the booth. "Thank me after you find out whether it actually worked.”