Chapter 29 Marcus Makes His Move

Chapter 29 Marcus Makes His Move
POV: Wren

The meeting request came through the dean of students portal at eight in the morning.
Formal, logged, routed through official channels with a reference number attached. Edmund Marcus Voss, foundation representative, requesting a meeting with student Wren Aldae regarding matters of mutual interest. Preferred time: today, eleven o'clock, dean's conference room B.
I read it twice. Then I opened the voice memo app on my phone and checked that it was working and looked up the one-party consent recording law for our state, which I had looked up once before and was looking up again because being certain was better than being almost certain.
Legal. One party present in the conversation could record without notifying the other party.
I was going to be present.
I texted Callum: He requested a formal meeting. Through the dean's office. I'm going.
Three dots. Then: Wren.
I'm going, I sent back. Don't come. Don't wait outside. Act normal.
I put the phone in my pocket and went to class for two hours because acting normal meant going to class and I was not going to let Marcus Voss rearrange my Tuesday morning more than necessary.
Conference room B was on the second floor of the administration building, glass-walled on one side, visible from the corridor, the kind of room that performed transparency while providing the acoustics of a private meeting. Marcus was already seated when I arrived, jacket on the chair back, sleeves rolled to the forearm, the specific visual of someone who had dressed down just enough to seem approachable.
Two coffees on the table. He had ordered for both of us.
I sat down and did not touch mine.
"Thank you for coming," he said.
"It went through the dean's office," I said. "It felt official."
He smiled. "I wanted it to be comfortable. Using the formal channel means there's a record, which protects both of us." A pause with nothing accidental in it. "I find that transparency creates better conversations."
Transparency. From the man who had photographed my press badge number while discussing regional philanthropy.
"What can I do for you," I said.
"I wanted to speak with you directly." He folded his hands on the table. "I have some concern about a situation that has developed and I think you deserve to hear it from me rather than through administrative correspondence."
I said nothing. Let him continue.
"There has been a conduct concern submitted to the university," he said. His voice stayed warm throughout, the register of someone delivering uncomfortable information regretfully rather than strategically. "Anonymous submission, routed through the student conduct office. It involves you specifically." He held my eyes. "I became aware of it through the foundation's relationship with the university oversight committee and I wanted you to know before the formal process begins."
"What kind of conduct concern," I said.
He reached into the folder on the table in front of him. Pulled out a single stapled document and placed it on the table between us, not pushing it toward me, just placing it in the space where I could reach it if I chose to.
I looked at him for a moment before I looked at it.
His expression was the same as it had been in the restaurant, at the path outside the administration building, on the walk that morning he arrived. Warm, attentive, completely at ease. The expression of someone who was exactly where they had planned to be, doing exactly what they had planned to do, and finding it proceeding exactly as expected.
I looked at the document.
It was a conduct concern form, standard university template, the boxes filled in with typed text rather than handwriting, which meant it had been composed on a computer and printed, which meant somewhere there was a digital original with a creation date attached to it.
I read the first paragraph.
The second.
By the third I had the full picture and I kept my face on the page because keeping my face on the page was the only way to keep it from doing something.
It was the arrangement. Word for word. The three-month timeline, the public appearance terms, the access exchange, the conditions. Specific dates, specific language, accurate enough that whoever wrote it had either seen the original notepad agreement or had been told the contents by someone who had.
Every detail. Accurate. On a conduct form submitted anonymously to the university system.
"It appears to allege," Marcus said carefully, "a transactional relationship between you and my son that may constitute a violation of the university's student conduct policy regarding misrepresentation of personal relationships for professional gain." He let that sit for exactly the right number of seconds. "I want you to know I take no position on the allegation personally. I simply felt you should be aware."
The voice memo app was running in my pocket.
I picked up the conduct form and read the whole thing from the beginning, slowly, all the way through, the way I read everything I was going to need to understand completely. Four pages. Every page accurate. Every detail sourced from information that had not been written down anywhere except the notepad and the copy I kept in my notebook.
My notebook that had been in my bag the morning of the breakfast meeting.
The bag I had hung on the back of my chair while we ate.
The chair I had pushed in when we left.
I looked up at Marcus.
"The scholarship review," I said. "The one already scheduled for end of semester. Does this conduct concern affect the timeline."
"I believe the conduct office would want to resolve any outstanding concerns before a renewal was confirmed." He said it with the gentleness of someone delivering weather information. "Standard process."
Standard process.
I put the document back on the table.
"Thank you for telling me directly," I said. My voice was completely level. "I appreciate the transparency."
His smile didn't change.
I picked up my coffee and drank it because leaving it untouched the whole meeting was information and I had already given him enough of that today.
The document sat between us on the white table.
Word for word. Specific dates. Exact terms.
The notepad agreement had two signatures on it. Mine. And Callum's.
And there was only one way someone had gotten the specific language of a handwritten agreement from a private meeting in a locked study room.
Someone had photographed it.
Someone who had been in that room.