Chapter 5 - The Deal on Petrified WoodMarcus walked slowly behind his desk, sitting down heavily in the leather chair. He placed the silver pillbox on the petrified wood surface, right next to the hardware-cloning drive Kayla had left behind.
"You think you can extort me, girl?" Marcus said, his voice returning to that smooth, dangerous calm. "You think because you have a tape of my wife being a whore and a traitor, you get to walk out of this house with my money?"
"I don't want your money, Marcus," Kayla said, dropping the 'sir' entirely. "I already took what I wanted. I have the complete records of your logistics company’s transactions from 2020. The ones that show the wire transfers to the mechanic who worked on Arthur Mason’s brakes."
Marcus’s eyes narrowed, the skin around his temples tightening. "Arthur Mason. The logistics guy from Glendale. You're his daughter."
"I am," Kayla said. "For five years, I’ve cleaned your floors, washed your underwear, and watched your wife spend the money you stole from my family after you murdered my father. I could have killed you a hundred times, Marcus. I could have put rat poison in your soup or cut your throat while you were passed out on the sofa after three bottles of scotch."
She stepped closer to the desk, her face reflecting in the polished wood.
"But if I killed you, I’d spend the rest of my life running from Cho and the rest of your enforcers. Or I’d go to prison for murder. That’s not what my father would have wanted. He wanted justice. He wanted his name back."
"So what’s the proposal?" Marcus asked, leaning back, his fingers interlaced over his stomach.
"You give me a signed confession for the corporate fraud and extortion that drove my father’s company into bankruptcy," Kayla said, pulling a single sheet of heavy legal paper from her tracksuit pocket and sliding it across the desk. "It’s already written. It doesn't mention the murder—I know you'd never sign that. It just details the financial crimes. Enough to clear my father's name, restore his estate to my mother, and ensure the state insurance policy pays out the full restitution."
"And in exchange?"
"In exchange, you keep that cloning drive," Kayla said, gesturing to the small black device. "It has the unedited footage of your wife and Leo Vance. It has the names of the three captains in your organization who have already taken bribes from Moretti to switch sides the moment you drop dead. It gives you twenty-four hours to clean your house before Victor Moretti realizes his plan has failed."
Marcus looked down at the paper, then at the drive. He was a businessman at heart—a brutal, bloody businessman, but one who understood profit and loss. His wife was a liability. His captains were traitors. His empire was on the verge of collapsing into a war he would lose because his own blood would have stopped pumping by midnight.
"And the FBI?" Marcus asked. "The dead-man's switch?"
"The moment I am forty miles outside of Los Angeles city limits, the encrypted backup on the server is deleted," Kayla said. "I don't care about your mafia war, Marcus. I don't care who controls the ports. I just want my family's life back."
Marcus looked at Cho. Cho didn't move, his eyes fixed on Marcus, waiting for the signal to execute the girl or hand her the pen.
Marcus reached into his drawer, pulled out a heavy, platinum Montblanc fountain pen, and uncapped it with a deliberate click. "You're smart, Kayla. Too smart to be a maid."
"I was a junior systems analyst, Mr. Kang," Kayla said, her voice dropping back into that level, professional tone. "The maid uniform was just a costume."
Marcus signed the bottom of the document with a thick, black script. He slid the paper back across the desk, then picked up the hardware-cloning drive, gripping it tightly in his fist.
May you like
"Take it," Marcus said. "And if I ever see your face in this state again, Cho won't use a gun. He’ll use his hands."
"You won't see me," Kayla said, taking the paper, folding it carefully, and tucking it into her jacket. "Good luck with your wife, Marcus. She’s very particular about how she likes things arranged."
