Chapter 10 - No More TransactionsDavid returned to the mansion at 4:13 in the morning.
Maya was awake.
She had promised not to follow him.
She had not promised to sleep.
The moment the front door opened, she stood.
David entered with Marcus.
Victoria followed.
Maya looked at all three of them.
“What happened?”
David removed his coat.
“Alexander is dead.”
Maya stared.
“What?”
“Eight months ago.”
“But the phone call—”
“Wasn’t him.”
Marcus placed a small device on the table.
“Voice cloning.”
Maya frowned.
“Someone copied his voice?”
“Enough recordings exist.”
David looked exhausted.
Maya walked toward him.
“Was anyone hurt?”
“No.”
“The gunshot?”
“Security returned fire at a camera.”
Maya blinked.
“A camera?”
“Someone was watching the building.”
Victoria sat down.
“They wanted David frightened.”
“No,” Maya said.
Everyone looked at her.
“They wanted him confused.”
David watched her.
Maya continued.
“Fear makes you protect me.”
She looked at the records.
“Confusion makes you distrust everyone.”
Marcus nodded slowly.
“And if David trusts nobody…”
“He isolates himself,” Maya finished.
David looked at her.
Exactly what he had done after Victoria.
Different woman.
Dinner.
No promises.
Morning exit.
The system had not simply protected him emotionally.
It had made him predictable.
Alone.
Easy to manipulate through suspicion.
Victoria looked at him.
“Someone has been using your worst instincts against you.”
David did not like hearing it.
That did not make it false.
“Who?”
Marcus sat down.
“We start with the one person who benefits from David believing Alexander is alive.”
Maya looked at Victoria.
“Who knew Alexander was dead?”
Victoria answered.
“Very few people.”
“Why?”
“He died under another name.”
David frowned.
“How?”
“Overdose.”
David looked away.
Whatever had happened between the brothers, the news landed.
Maya saw grief appear beneath anger.
She did not touch him immediately.
She waited.
Then David reached for her.
That mattered.
Maya took his hand.
Victoria watched.
For a moment, something complicated passed across her face.
Regret, perhaps.
Not jealousy.
Recognition.
She had known a different David.
One who would rather bleed privately than reach for someone publicly.
Marcus broke the silence.
“We still have Richard Vale.”
Victoria nodded.
“He knew Alexander.”
David looked at her.
“How well?”
“Better than I told you.”
“Of course.”
“David—”
“No.”
He pulled his hand from Maya’s.
“Every time we get close to the truth, you reveal another piece you forgot to mention.”
“I didn’t forget.”
“Then you lied.”
“Yes.”
Maya watched them.
Victoria stood.
“I lied because I was afraid.”
David laughed bitterly.
“You don’t get to use that excuse.”
“Why? Because only you’re allowed to build your entire personality around being betrayed?”
Silence.
Marcus looked at the floor.
Maya’s eyebrows rose.
Victoria continued.
“You think you were the only person Vale manipulated?”
“You slept with him.”
“Yes.”
“And I have hated myself for it every day since.”
David said nothing.
Victoria’s voice shook.
“I thought he loved me. I thought you were controlling. I thought Nathan was jealous. I thought everyone warning me was trying to decide my life for me.”
She swallowed.
“And by the time I understood, Nathan was gone.”
David’s anger did not disappear.
But it changed.
Maya recognized the moment.
He was beginning to see Victoria as a person who had made terrible choices rather than the monster responsible for every terrible thing that followed.
That did not require forgiveness.
Only accuracy.
“What did Vale know about Alexander?” David asked.
Victoria sat again.
“Everything.”
“How?”
“Alexander financed him.”
Marcus looked up.
“What?”
“Before Vale became CFO.”
David stared.
Victoria continued.
“Alexander helped Vale build his career. Vale joined Prescott Holdings because Alexander wanted someone inside.”
David understood.
“My brother was stealing from the company.”
“At first.”
“At first?”
Victoria nodded.
“Then he wanted out.”
“Why?”
“Nathan.”
Maya frowned.
“What did Nathan do?”
“He found him.”
“Alexander?”
“Yes.”
Victoria looked at David.
“Nathan convinced him that Vale was moving far more money than Alexander had authorized.”
Marcus leaned forward.
“So Alexander started the scheme…”
“And Vale took it over.”
David finished the thought.
Victoria nodded.
“Alexander wanted revenge against your father. Maybe against you. But Vale wanted the company.”
David looked at the records.
“And Nathan documented it.”
“Yes.”
“Where are the original records?”
Victoria hesitated.
“I don’t know.”
David’s expression hardened.
She raised her hands.
“I genuinely don’t.”
Marcus looked at the paperwork.
“Then why does Vale think you do?”
“Because Nathan sent me a message before he disappeared.”
“What message?”
Victoria closed her eyes.
“‘If something happens to me, ask David about 10:09.’”
David froze.
Maya looked at him.
“What?”
David did not respond.
“David?”
He stared at Victoria.
“Say that again.”
“10:09.”
Maya felt him go completely still.
She knew that time.
Of course she did.
Every night.
Marcus.
What time is it?
10:09.
Here we go.
Bring someone.
Maya looked between them.
“Why does that matter?”
Marcus’s face changed too.
David walked toward the office.
Maya followed.
“What is it?”
David opened a drawer.
Inside was an old watch.
Broken.
The hands were frozen.
10:09.
Maya stared.
“That’s why you always asked Marcus.”
David nodded slowly.
“My father died at 10:09.”
The room became silent.
“He was wearing this watch.”
Maya looked at it.
David turned it over.
An inscription was engraved on the back.
D.P. — Time reveals what money hides.
Marcus frowned.
“I’ve seen that watch for years.”
“So have I.”
David pressed the crown.
Nothing.
Maya looked closer.
“Can I?”
David handed it to her.
She examined the casing.
“You said it was broken.”
“It is.”
“No.”
She ran her fingernail along the edge.
“It’s been opened.”
David looked closer.
Maya pressed the back plate.
It shifted.
Marcus immediately stepped forward.
Inside the watch was a tiny storage card.
Nobody spoke.
David stared at it.
For three years, the clue had been sitting in his desk.
Every night at 10:09, he had unconsciously repeated the time of his father’s death.
Then sent Marcus to bring him another stranger.
He had turned grief into ritual without realizing it.
Maya looked at him.
“David.”
He swallowed.
“I never knew.”
“I know.”
Marcus took the card.
“I’ll open it on an isolated system.”
Minutes later, the truth appeared.
Transactions.
Emails.
Audio recordings.
Names.
Richard Vale.
Alexander Prescott.
Nathan Cole.
And one more person.
Someone David had trusted for twelve years.
Marcus stared at the screen.
“No.”
David looked at him.
“What?”
Marcus did not move.
Maya felt the air change.
“Marcus?”
He turned the laptop.
The final name was there.
Jonathan Mercer.
David’s chairman of the board.
His father’s closest friend.
The man who had delivered the eulogy at his funeral.
The man who had told David, at twenty-three, that Alexander could never be trusted.
The man who had encouraged David to hire Richard Vale.
David stared.
“It was Mercer.”
Marcus nodded.
“Looks like it.”
Victoria whispered, “He created the war between everyone.”
Maya looked at the records.
“He made Alexander blame David.”
“Yes.”
“He used Vale.”
“Yes.”
“He made Victoria look responsible.”
“Yes.”
“And Nathan discovered it.”
Marcus nodded.
David stood completely still.
Maya knew what came next.
The old David would destroy Mercer.
Immediately.
Publicly.
Completely.
The new David did something else.
He called federal investigators.
Marcus looked surprised.
“You’re not handling it internally?”
“No.”
“David—”
“No more secrets.”
He looked at Maya.
“No more controlling the outcome.”
Maya smiled faintly.
“That sounds painful.”
“It is.”
By sunrise, copies of the evidence were in the hands of attorneys and investigators.
Mercer was removed from all company systems before he knew the evidence had been found.
Richard Vale was located two days later.
Victoria entered protective custody while investigators reopened Nathan’s disappearance.
For the first time, David did not try to personally control every piece.
He cooperated.
He waited.
He told the truth.
Three weeks later, Maya stood outside a nursing school building holding an acceptance letter.
David stood beside her.
She looked at him suspiciously.
“You didn’t call anyone?”
“No.”
“Donate a building?”
“No.”
“Threaten admissions?”
“No.”
“Purchase the school?”
David looked offended.
“Maya.”
“I’m checking.”
“You got in because you earned it.”
She looked down at the letter.
For years, nursing had been the life she intended to return to someday.
Someday after her mother recovered.
Someday after the bills.
Someday after survival became less demanding.
Now someday had a date.
David watched her.
“You’re crying.”
“No.”
“You are.”
“It’s allergies.”
“In December?”
“Very aggressive allergies.”
He smiled.
Maya wiped her eyes.
“My mother is going to lose her mind.”
“She already knows.”
Maya slowly turned.
“What?”
David froze.
“That came out wrong.”
“You told her?”
“She called me.”
“And?”
“She asked whether you got in.”
“And you told her?”
“Yes.”
Maya stared.
“You’re terrible with secrets.”
“Apparently that’s healthier.”
She laughed.
Then hugged him.
David wrapped his arms around her.
There were still problems ahead.
The investigation was not finished.
Nathan had not been found.
Victoria still had questions to answer.
David’s company would spend months repairing the damage Mercer and Vale had caused.
But something fundamental had changed.
David no longer believed safety meant never needing anyone.
Maya no longer believed accepting love meant surrendering independence.
They were learning the uncomfortable middle.
Help without ownership.
Love without debt.
Trust without certainty.
Months later, Maya came home from her first clinical rotation exhausted.
David was in the kitchen.
She stopped.
“What are you doing?”
“Making coffee.”
“No.”
“I’ve improved.”
“No.”
“Maya.”
“Step away from the machine.”
He looked offended.
“I watched a tutorial.”
“That somehow makes this more dangerous.”
She took the cup.
Tasted it.
Paused.
David waited.
“Well?”
Maya considered.
“Acceptable.”
His eyes narrowed.
“That word again.”
“It means progress.”
David walked toward her.
“Do I get anything for progress?”
“What do you want?”
He put his hands around her waist.
Maya smiled.
“Dangerous question.”
David kissed her.
The mansion was still enormous.
Still excessive.
Still full of rooms no two people could reasonably need.
But it was no longer silent.
There were Maya’s nursing books on the dining table.
Her shoes near the stairs.
A grocery list on the refrigerator containing an angry note about David buying the wrong tomatoes.
Mrs. Carter visited on Sundays and continued to terrify him.
Marcus had stopped keeping records of the women David no longer requested.
One evening, almost a year after Maya had first arrived, David looked at the clock.
10:09.
Maya noticed him staring.
“What?”
He shook his head.
“Nothing.”
She understood anyway.
“That time used to mean something bad.”
“Yes.”
“And now?”
David looked at her.
“Now it means you’re usually about to complain that I work too late.”
Maya checked the clock.
“You are working too late.”
He smiled.
“There it is.”
She closed his laptop.
“Come on.”
“Where?”
“Dinner.”
“I have emails.”
“You have tomorrow.”
David looked at the closed laptop.
Once, he would have opened it again.
Instead, he stood.
Maya took his hand.
Then stopped.
“Oh.”
“What?”
She looked at him.
“You know what I just realized?”
David waited.
“The first night I came here, you paid eighty thousand dollars for my company.”
His expression tightened.
“That’s not exactly—”
“I know.”
She smiled.
“And now you can’t get rid of me for free.”
David laughed.
“Terrible investment.”
“Awful.”
“The worst.”
Maya started walking away.
David caught her hand.
She turned.
He looked at her for a long moment.
Then his expression became serious.
“Maya.”
“What?”
“I love you.”
She froze.
David had never said it.
Not once.
He had shown it in a hundred imperfect ways.
Waiting when she asked for time.
Asking instead of ordering.
Listening when every instinct told him to control.
Helping her find scholarships instead of buying her future.
Letting investigators handle Mercer instead of turning justice into revenge.
But he had never said the words.
Maya stared at him.
David suddenly looked nervous.
That alone nearly made her laugh.
“You look terrified.”
“I am.”
“The great David Prescott?”
“Don’t make this worse.”
She stepped closer.
“Say it again.”
His eyes met hers.
“I love you.”
Maya smiled.
“I love you too.”
David exhaled.
“That’s surprisingly relieving.”
“What did you think I was going to say?”
“I had several scenarios.”
“Of course you did.”
“Most were unfavorable.”
Maya touched his face.
“No contracts.”
“No.”
“No transactions.”
“No.”
“No promises you can’t keep.”
David nodded.
“Agreed.”
She smiled.
“And no terrible coffee.”
“That one is unreasonable.”
“Then the relationship is over.”
David pulled her closer.
“Absolutely not.”
She laughed.
And at 10:09, in the house where David Prescott had once built his entire life around making sure nobody stayed long enough to matter, Maya stayed.
Not because she needed his money.
Not because he had rescued her.
Not because she owed him anything.
She stayed because she chose him.
And David finally understood the difference.
Love was not someone remaining because you had made leaving impossible.
May you like
It was opening every door—
and discovering they still wanted to stay.
