“Do not ask him to reconstruct information he isn't certain about,” she said. “And do not let anyone pressure him into guessing.”
Paige thanked her.
After the call, Malachi looked at his mother.
“Is that important?”
“It might be.”
“Could I get in trouble?”
“No, sweetheart. You have done nothing wrong by remembering what you saw.”
He nodded.
But as he went to bed, he wondered whether the billionaire's fear was not really about the safe at all.
Perhaps it was about what the safe had been hiding.
Wells began sleeping poorly.
He woke before dawn, checked his phone, and reviewed the security reports that Thomas sent him. He examined every email from the auditors and demanded updates from Martin.
The more he learned, the less secure he felt.
The missing file had been recovered from a backup, and the auditors were examining its contents. The correspondence suggested that Victor Hale had coordinated payments to several intermediaries.
Whether those payments were legitimate consulting fees or something more troubling remained uncertain.
Daniel Mercer denied wrongdoing.
Victor Hale could not be reached.
The external systems administrator claimed not to remember deleting anything.
Wells found himself surrounded by people who offered explanations without certainty.
He hated uncertainty.
For most of his career, he had treated it as a problem that money could solve.
He hired experts.
He purchased insurance.
He demanded guarantees.
But the more aggressively he tried to eliminate uncertainty, the more isolated he became.
One evening, he sat alone in the study and opened the safe.
He removed the bearer bonds and placed them on the desk.
He counted the stacks of cash.
He checked the deeds.
Everything was present.
Yet the contents no longer reassured him.
He looked at the documents and wondered how much of his fortune rested on decisions he had never fully understood.
His phone rang.
It was his estranged brother, Nathan.
Wells almost ignored the call.
Then he answered.
“What do you want?”
Nathan sighed.
“Hello to you, too.”
“I am busy.”
“I heard about the safe.”
“Of course you did.”
“Is it true?”
“Which part?”
“That a ten-year-old opened it.”
Wells looked toward the door.
“Yes.”
Nathan was silent for a moment.
“Then perhaps the world is trying to tell you something.”
Wells laughed bitterly.
“Don't start with philosophy.”
“I'm serious. You spent years insisting that nobody could be trusted. You built a safe that even its manufacturers couldn't recover. Then you forgot the combination.”
“I didn't ask for commentary.”
“You never do.”
Wells gripped the phone.
Nathan continued.
“You know what your problem is? You think control and security are the same thing. They aren't.”
Wells said nothing.
“You can control what people do around you for a while. You can pay them, threaten them, or make them afraid to disagree. But you cannot control what they think of you.”
“Are you finished?”
“Almost. What happened to the boy's mother?”
Wells looked away.
“I dismissed her.”
“Why?”
“She became difficult.”
Nathan exhaled.
“You mean she asked you to keep your word.”
Wells ended the call.
He stood beside the desk, breathing hard.
His brother had always been irritatingly perceptive.
Perhaps that was why Wells had spent years avoiding him.
Nathan remembered their childhood differently. He remembered their father as a complicated man who sometimes made mistakes and sometimes tried to repair them.
Wells remembered their father as weak.
He had built his own life around never appearing weak.
Now he was beginning to understand the cost.
The following morning, Martin arrived with an update.
“The audit has identified several transactions requiring further investigation. We cannot yet conclude that a crime occurred, but the company should cooperate fully with the appropriate authorities.”
Wells looked exhausted.
“What happens to Northstar?”
“That depends on the findings.”
“And my position?”
Martin paused.
“You may need to step aside from certain decisions while the review continues.”
Wells's face hardened.
“I built this company.”
“Yes.”
“I own the controlling shares.”
“Yes.”
“Then nobody can remove me.”
Martin looked at him steadily.
“Ownership does not eliminate responsibility.”
Wells stared at the lawyer.
For a moment, he wanted to shout.
Instead, he sank into his chair.
“What would you do?”
Martin answered without hesitation.
“I would preserve the records, cooperate with the investigation, and stop treating every question as an attack.”
Wells rubbed his eyes.
“And the boy?”
“Leave him alone. His family has a lawyer. If you need information about what he saw, any request should go through the proper channels.”
Wells nodded slowly.
Martin stood.
At the door, he paused.
“One more thing. If you want to repair your reputation, do not begin by asking how to control the story. Begin by deciding what you are willing to take responsibility for.”
After he left, Wells sat quietly.
He thought about the safe.
He thought about the boy.
He thought about his brother's voice.
Then he looked at the open vault and realized that the thing he feared most was not losing money.
It was discovering that he had built an empire around a version of himself that could not survive the truth.
Rebecca Shaw received a formal request from Martin Cole.
Wells wanted to meet with Paige and Malachi to discuss a possible resolution.
Rebecca agreed only after establishing several conditions.
The meeting would take place in a neutral office.
No confidentiality agreement would be required simply to attend.
Malachi would not be questioned without his mother and lawyer present.
And the family would be free to leave whenever they wished.
Martin accepted.
The meeting took place on a rainy Tuesday afternoon.
Paige wore her best navy dress. Malachi wore a clean shirt and carried his notebook in his backpack.
Wells arrived ten minutes early.
He looked older than he had in the photographs accompanying the news articles. The lines around his eyes were deeper, and his usual expression of contempt had been replaced by something resembling exhaustion.
When Paige entered, he stood.
“Thank you for coming.”
She nodded cautiously.