Chapter 28 - The Last Confession
The silence in the penthouse suite grew heavy, punctuated only by the distant murmur of the London traffic twelve floors below. Nora and Julian stood side by side, looking down at the small black smartphone resting on the marble table as if it were a venomous snake.
"Marcus," Nora said, her voice completely devoid of emotion—neither anger nor pity, just absolute indifference. "How did you get permission to make an outside call?"
"I didn't," Marcus’s voice rasped through the speaker, accompanied by the faint, institutional clatter of a prison common room in the background. "I traded my remaining legal library privileges for five minutes on a contraband burner phone. I... I know you’re in London. I saw the gala on the prison television."
"Then you saw what happens when you build on lies," Nora replied coolly, crossing her arms over her emerald gown.
A heavy, pathetic sigh echoed through the phone line—a sound that carried the crushing weight of a man who had lost everything because his ego wouldn't allow him to share the spotlight with someone brighter than himself.
"I was a fool, Nora," Marcus whispered, the bravado that had once defined him completely melted away. "Every project I’ve touched since you left... they’re failing. The new lead architects at Keller Holdings walked out yesterday. The board is liquidating the company. I had everything, and I threw it all away because I couldn't stand the thought that your genius was real and mine was just a reflection of yours."
Julian stepped forward, leaning down toward the phone, his voice hard as tempered steel. "You didn't just throw it away, Marcus. You tried to destroy an innocent woman to protect your fragile ego. And now you’re sitting in a cell where you belong. Don't ever call this number again."
"Wait—just wait!" Marcus cried out, his voice cracking with sudden, desperate urgency. "There’s... there’s one last thing. Something I never told you about the patent office filings from three years ago. Before the federal raid... Richard Vance didn't just help me steal your initial designs. He hid a secondary backup server in a vault beneath our old college campus architecture building. If the federal authorities find it, they won't just implicate Richard—they’ll find original blueprints of designs you haven't even drawn yet. He was planning to patent them under a shell company if you ever tried to leave."
Nora’s expression hardened. Even from behind bars, Marcus was still trying to manipulate her, still trying to tangle her up in his poisoned web of secrets.
"Keep your ghost servers, Marcus," Nora said firmly. "I don't care about what was hidden in the past anymore. I only care about what we’re building tomorrow."
She reached out and pressed the red end-call button, cutting the connection instantly. The phone went dead, the screen fading to black.
Julian looked down at her, his eyes full of fierce admiration. "You didn't even flinch."
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"Why should I?" Nora said, a radiant smile breaking across her face as she looked up into his eyes. "Ghosts only have power over you if you keep looking backward. And my neck only turns forward."
***
