Amore had left at nine.
The goodbye had been warm and careful in the way all their goodbyes were ; a hug that lasted the right amount of time, a look that said more than the words, the specific restraint of two women who had learned from the same source not to put too much weight on exits. Amore had said think about what I said. Delaney had said I will. The elevator had closed and the penthouse had gone quiet and Delaney had stood at the window for a moment watching the street below.
Then she had gone to her desk and opened the article.
It was good. She knew it was good ; she had been a journalist for long enough to know the difference between something that worked and something that merely existed, and this worked. Elena's history, documented. The father, the abandonment, the Bulgarian file, the adoption. The gap between the story the Fighter's family told about themselves and the paperwork underneath it. Clean, sourced, true.
She read it twice. Made two small edits. Saved it.
Then she picked up her phone and called Marcus.
✻ ✻ ✻
He answered on the third ring. She could hear a television in the background, something with a live audience.
"Delaney." His voice was careful. It was always careful with her now, since the Bloodless fallout, since the Beacon Hub. Careful the way people were careful around something that had been unstable and might be again. "It's late."
"It's ten-thirty."
"I know what time it is."
"Then you know it's not late." She leaned back in her chair. The monitors glowed around her, the Fighter's schedule still open on the secondary screen, the article on the primary. "I'm calling because I need to know if you're still in."
A pause. The television sound lowered
;he'd turned it down.
"In what sense."
"The sense we discussed. The story. Elena's history. I'm publishing this week."
"Delaney—"
"I know what you're going to say—"
"Do you? Because last time I said it you didn't seem to hear it." His voice had an edge now, the careful gone. "The first report cost you your job. It cost some of us things too. Things you didn't ask about."
"I'm asking now."
"I don't want to be asked now." A breath. "Look. I've been hearing things. Through the old channels, the people who are still close to the camp. About the Fighter."
She waited.
"He's on medication," Marcus said. "Antidepressants, something like that. Started a few months ago apparently. It's not public."
Delaney looked at the monitors. At the schedule. At the photograph on the center screen she'd had open for days.
"I know," she said.
"You knew."
"I suspected. I know now." She paused. "Which bottle. Which pharmacy."
The silence on the other end of the line was a different kind of silence than before.
"Delaney."
"The brand, Marcus. If you know the pharmacy you know the brand. Which one."
"I'm not—" He stopped. "No. No, I'm not doing that."
"I'm not asking you to do anything. I'm asking for information."
"You're asking for his medication information so you can do something with it and I don't want to know what." His voice had gone flat. "I won't. That's not journalism, that's not a story, that's—"
"It's leverage," she said simply.
"It's messing with someone's mental health medication and I won't be part of that." A pause. "Delaney. Listen to me. The article about Elena — maybe that's journalism, I can argue that either way. But this? What you're describing? That's not a story anymore."
"Then don't think of it as a story."
"What do I think of it as?"
She looked at the photograph. At his face, slightly off-camera, waiting for something that wasn't where the lens was pointed.
"Think of it as an ending," she said.
The silence stretched.
"Then take it," she said. "The medication. Whatever it is. Find a way to interfere with it. Get to the pharmacy, get to someone in his circle, I don't care how—"
"No." The word came out hard and final. "No. Absolutely not. You want me to sabotage a depressed man's antidepressants. That's what you're asking."
"I'm asking you to help me finish the story—"
"That's not a story! That's — Delaney, do you hear yourself? That's killing someone. That could kill someone." His voice had lost its careful quality entirely, replaced with something that was close to afraid. "What happened to you."
She said nothing.
"I'm not doing this," Marcus said. "The article — maybe. Elena's history — we can talk. But I won't touch his medication and I won't help you get near it and if you go near it yourself I'll—" He stopped. "I'm going to pretend this part of the conversation didn't happen. For both our sakes. Don't call me about this again."
"Why won't the others answer my calls?"
A pause. Long enough to mean something.
"Marcus."
"Delaney-"
"It's a simple question. I've called four numbers in the last two weeks. Nothing. Not even a decline. Just silence."
"People are busy-"
"Don't." Her voice stayed flat. "I know what busy looks like. This isn't busy. This is a decision. Why."
The television sound had gone completely now. She heard him shift in his chair, the specific sound of someone deciding how much to give.
"Rowan," he said finally.
She said nothing.
"Word got around," Marcus said. "About what happened. About the way he left. The cleaned desk, the car, the-" He stopped. "Nobody knows exactly what you did, Delaney. But everybody knows something happened. And nobody wants to be the next person you decide is a problem."
"Rowan made choices-"
"Rowan is gone." His voice was quiet and hard. "He had a life and a job and a forwarding address and now he doesn't. And you want to know why people aren't returning your calls." A beat. "That's why. That's the whole answer. And it's not just the others, Delaney. We're being investigated. The police. Missing persons, officially, but the detective who came to see me wasn't asking missing persons questions. He was asking about you. About your methods. About the last time anyone saw Rowan and what the working environment was like and whether anyone had ever felt-" He stopped. "Threatened. That was his word. Whether anyone had ever felt threatened."
"What did you say."
"I said no." A pause that felt like it cost him something. "I said no because I'm not stupid and I'm not ready to have that conversation without a lawyer present. But they're going to come back, Delaney. They always come back. And when they do I'm going to have to decide what I actually say."
Delaney looked at the monitors.
"I see," she said.
"Do you?" He sounded tired now, tired in a way that went past the late hour. "Because I'm answering because you called and I still had enough — I don't know. Enough something. But the others? They're not cowards. They're just not interested in disappearing."
"No one is going to disappear, Marcus."
"That's exactly what you'd say either way."
She had no answer for that. She let it sit.
"Help me," she said. "The medication. That's all I need."
"And I told you no."
"I have the Krauss arrangement, Marcus."
Silence.
"I have everything. The invoice, the source payments, the off-book arrangement with the Krauss Foundation." Her voice was very calm. "I kept copies. I keep copies of everything. You know that about me."
⚖️ Krauss Foundation — Funding Arrangement (Confidential)
"Delaney." His voice had changed completely. The fear was still there but something harder had moved in underneath it. "Don't."
"Help me and I never open the folder. Refuse and I send it to three editors I still have relationships with before you're off the phone." A pause. "I'm not asking anymore, Marcus. I stopped asking thirty seconds ago."
The silence on the line was long and bad.
"You've lost your mind," he said. Quietly. Like a diagnosis.
"Maybe," she said. "The medication. By Friday."
The line went dead.
✻ ✻ ✻
Delaney held the phone for a moment. The room was very quiet around her — the monitors humming, the city outside the glass doing its indifferent late-night thing, the penthouse empty of everyone except her.
She looked at the photograph.
She told herself she hated him. She said it clearly, deliberately, the way you say a fact you need to stay true.
Then she set the phone down and opened a new document and started making a list.
Marcus had said no.
Marcus was not the only person she knew.
✻ ✻ ✻
The Recording Angel never stops recording. She only waits for the right moment to play it back.
> Chapter complete. The list begins. Continue to next chapter? [Y/N]