“Because I didn’t know what it meant. I thought it was about the money. I was wrong.”
The taxi turned onto a crowded avenue.
Agrippa ended the call and looked at Natalie.
“Do you know where Daniel keeps his records?”
She hesitated.
“His official records are probably gone. But he had a private office above an old boxing gym. He used it for meetings that he didn’t want recorded.”
“Where?”
Natalie gave him an address on the industrial edge of the city.
Then she added something that made Agrippa turn sharply.
“There’s one more thing. The notebook may not be the only copy of the evidence.”
“What do you mean?”
“Someone made a digital archive before the final fight. A backup of the accounting records, the contracts, and the messages between Malcolm and his investors.”
“Who made it?”
Natalie looked directly at him.
“You did.”
Agrippa stared at her.
“I never created an archive.”
“You might not remember. You were taking medication after your knee surgery. Malcolm told people you were confused and forgetful. But the archive was created using your credentials, and the files were encrypted with a phrase only you would know.”
“What phrase?”
Natalie reached into her bag and removed another sheet of paper.
On it was a line from one of Agrippa’s old training journals:
A FIGHT ENDS WHEN SOMEONE DECIDES IT DOES.
Agrippa remembered writing those words years ago, after a brutal training session. He had never used them as a password.
Yet someone had.
The taxi stopped at a traffic light. Through the windshield, Agrippa watched pedestrians crossing the road, each person absorbed in an ordinary day.
His life had become anything but ordinary.
If the archive existed, Malcolm had spent years trying to find it. And if it was connected to Agrippa’s credentials, there was a chance that the missing notebook was only one piece of a much larger puzzle.
He looked at Natalie.
“Take me to the old gym.”
Trent Maddox had not slept.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the video from the park. He heard the laughter of strangers, the insults posted beneath his name, and the voice of Malcolm Rourke telling him that he could still become useful.
He had expected to feel powerful after meeting Malcolm. Instead, he felt like a man standing at the edge of a building, looking down and realizing he had no idea how he had climbed so high.
At eight that morning, another message arrived.
DID YOU FOLLOW HIM?
Trent typed a reply, deleted it, and finally sent three words.
I NEED MORE TIME.
The answer came immediately.
YOU HAVE NONE.
He threw the phone onto the passenger seat and drove to the abandoned parking lot where the five men had agreed to meet. Mason was already there, pacing beside his car. Cole sat on the hood, scrolling through his phone. Denny leaned against a concrete pillar. Bryce stood apart from the others, his hands buried in his jacket pockets.
“You look terrible,” Mason said.
“Thanks.”
“Did you meet the guy?”
Trent hesitated. “Yes.”
“And?”
“He wants information about Agrippa.”
Cole laughed bitterly. “Of course he does. Everyone wants something from that man now.”
“He says Agrippa’s old fighting career is connected to a financial scandal.”
Denny straightened. “What kind of scandal?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Then what exactly did you agree to do?”
Trent looked at him.
“Find out where Agrippa goes. Who he talks to. Whether he has anything from his fighting days.”
Bryce finally spoke.
“You’re spying on him?”
“No one said spying.”
“That’s exactly what it is.”
Trent stepped closer. “You have a better idea? We’re all being dragged through the mud because of that video. We need to get our names back.”
“Our names?” Bryce asked. “You mean yours.”
The accusation struck harder than Trent expected.
For years, Bryce had been the quietest member of their group. He rarely challenged Trent directly, preferring to laugh along and pretend that silence made him innocent. Now he looked at Trent with a kind of disappointment that made the others uncomfortable.
“You were the one who started it,” Bryce continued. “You were the one who kept pushing him. We all followed you because we thought you knew what you were doing.”
“I didn’t force any of you to come.”
“No. You just made sure nobody wanted to be the person who walked away.”
The parking lot fell silent.
Mason broke the tension.
“Forget the argument. What do we actually know about this Rourke guy?”
Trent took out his phone and showed them a photograph of Malcolm.
Cole’s expression changed.
“I’ve seen him before.”
“Where?”
“At the gym where my cousin works. He came in a few months ago and asked about old membership records. He wanted to know who had trained there in the late nineties.”
“Did he mention Agrippa?”