Agrippa studied him. “How do I know you’re telling the truth now?”
“You don’t. Not because of what I say.” Victor reached into a battered gym bag and withdrew a sealed envelope. “Because I kept the copy Malcolm gave me, along with the letter he sent afterward. I should have handed them over years ago.”
The envelope contained the original authorization page and a handwritten note from Malcolm: Keep your mouth shut and Fisher keeps his career. Open it, and you both go down.
Beneath it lay a second sheet: a list of payments to Victor, each labeled as consulting fees. The amounts were small compared with the missing purse, but the final transfer had been made two days after the championship.
Agrippa looked at him. “You took money.”
Victor nodded. “I accepted it as payment for training work. After I learned what the contract meant, I should have returned it and gone to the authorities. I didn’t. I kept telling myself the amount was too small to matter.”
“It mattered to you.”
“Yes.”
Victor pushed the documents across the table. “I’ll give a statement. I’ll tell the investigators everything. I won’t ask you to forgive me.”
Agrippa picked up the envelope. “Good. Because forgiveness isn’t something you get to put in a contract.”
He turned toward the door, then stopped.
“You can still do one thing right. Tell them where Malcolm keeps the original contract.”
Victor closed his eyes. “The Rourke Foundation’s private archive. Beneath the old arena on Mercer Street. Malcolm keeps the physical records there because he thinks nobody would search a charity building.”
Agrippa slipped the envelope into his jacket.
As he stepped outside, Larry hurried toward him. “What happened?”
“The truth,” Agrippa said. “Some of it.”
“Did he lie?”
“Yes.”
“Do you hate him?”
Agrippa looked through the glass at Victor, alone beneath the old photographs. “I’m angry with him. That’s not the same thing.”
Larry took his hand. They walked toward the car, leaving the gym behind them—not healed, not forgiven, but no longer pretending that loyalty meant keeping every secret buried.
The Rourke Foundation occupied a restored brick building beside the arena where Agrippa had won his championship. Its public mission was to fund youth sports and rehabilitation programs for injured athletes. Its brochures showed smiling children, polished floors, and Malcolm Rourke shaking hands with city officials.
The building’s basement, according to Victor, held the records Malcolm did not want anyone to see.
Natalie studied the floor plan on her laptop. “The public archive is on the first floor. The private storage room is below the old arena’s west entrance. There’s a service corridor connecting the two.”
“We do this with the investigators,” Agrippa said. “No breaking in, no confrontation unless they tell us to move.”
Trent looked relieved. “I’m glad you said that.”
“Don’t mistake caution for fear,” Agrippa replied. “We have enough evidence to bring them in. We need the original contract to close the gaps.”
The lawyer had arranged for investigators to seek a warrant using Keene’s statement, the archive records, and the footage from the facility. But the warrant had not yet been signed. A tip from inside the foundation suggested that Malcolm planned to move the documents that night.
They waited in a parked car across the street. Rain had stopped, leaving the pavement glossy beneath the streetlights. At 8:41 p.m., Malcolm’s black sedan pulled into the loading area. Daniel Voss stepped out from the passenger side carrying a metal document case.
“There,” Natalie whispered. “He’s moving the records.”
The investigators were still two blocks away. Agrippa watched Daniel disappear through the service entrance, then saw Malcolm speak briefly to a security guard. The guard nodded and locked the gate behind him.
A minute later, the foundation’s lights went dark.
“That’s not normal,” Trent said.
“No,” Natalie replied. “It’s a cleanup.”
Agrippa called the lead investigator and reported what they had seen. The investigator told them to stay in place. They obeyed for almost three minutes, until smoke began to curl from a basement vent.
“They’re burning the archive,” Natalie said.
The investigator’s voice sharpened through the phone. “Do not enter the building. Units are arriving now.”
Agrippa stared at the smoke. Inside that basement were records linking Malcolm to the altered medical report, the missing purse, and the hidden investment network. If they burned, the remaining evidence might not be enough to show how the scheme had operated.
He thought of Larry checking the windows. He thought of Keene flinching at every slammed door. He thought of Victor’s signature on a page he had never properly read.
Then he saw a maintenance worker stumble from the side entrance, coughing, one hand pressed to his face. He fell to his knees beside the wall.
Agrippa ran.