Chapter 3 - The Thirty-Eighth FloorOnce the door clicked shut behind Howard and the guards, the heavy weight of the morning seemed to settle back into my shoulders. I walked over to the sofa, knelt down slowly so I was at eye level with Marcus, and offered a gentle, reassuring smile.
“It’s safe to come out now, partner,” I said softly. “The bad man is gone.”
Marcus blinked, wiping a stray tear from his cheek with the back of his scuffed sleeve, though he tried his best to look tough. He crawled out from behind the sofa, his sneakers squeaking slightly on the rug.
“Did… did he try to poison you?” Marcus whispered, glancing nervously at the broken glass near the window.
“He tried,” I nodded, resting a hand gently on his small shoulder. “Because he thought nobody was watching. But he forgot that sometimes, the most important person in a building isn't the man in the corner office. It’s the person who knows how to use the stairs.”
A faint, proud smile touched the corners of the boy’s mouth.
“My mom says stairs are better for your knees anyway,” he muttered.
I let out a low, genuine laugh—the first one I had felt in months. I stood up, offering him my hand. “Come on. Let’s go down to the thirty-eighth floor. I think it’s about time I met your mother.”
The private express elevator took less than thirty seconds to drop four floors, but as we descended, my mind raced. If Arthur Sterling had been working with Meridian Global for months, how deep did the rot go? Who else in the corporate hierarchy had signed off on the transfer? And more importantly, how had a ten-year-old boy managed to witness a murder plot while hiding out in a corporate breakroom?
When the elevator doors chimed and slid open on the thirty-eighth floor, we stepped out into the bustling administrative wing of Whitmore Shipping’s international logistics division. Desks were lined up in neat rows, phones were ringing, and analysts were shouting shipping manifests across the open-plan office.
“Mom’s desk is over by the far windows,” Marcus said, pulling gently on my sleeve to guide me past a row of filing cabinets. “She works in accounts receivable.”
As we approached the corner cubicles, I noticed a woman with tired eyes and silver-streaked hair standing by the copier machine, frantically sorting through stacks of invoices. She wore a faded navy cardigan that matched her son’s shirt, her shoulders hunched under the relentless weight of corporate bureaucracy.
“Mom?” Marcus called out softly.
Elena Vance—as her employee badge read—dropped a stack of papers, her head snapping up instantly. When she saw her son standing beside me—the owner and CEO of the entire multi-billion-dollar enterprise—the color drained completely from her face.
“Mr. Whitmore!” she gasped, stumbling backward against the copier, her hands flying to her mouth. “I—I am so sorry! Did Marcus wander up to the executive floor again? I told him to stay in the breakroom, I swear to God, sir, please don’t fire him—I mean, fire me—I need this job to pay for his medical—!”
“Mrs. Vance,” I interrupted, stepping forward and holding up my hand to calm her panic. “Please. Take a breath.”
She stopped, trembling visibly, her eyes darting between me and her son.
“Your son didn't do anything wrong,” I said, my voice softening. In fact, he just saved my life.”
Elena blinked, her confusion cutting right through her fear. “Saved… your life?”
“Mr. Sterling tried to poison my coffee upstairs,” I explained calmly, watching the realization dawn on her face. “Marcus saw him do it, followed him up four flights of stairs, and walked into my office just in time to stop me from taking a drink.”
The silence that followed was absolute. Elena looked down at Marcus, her hands dropping to her sides as she knelt on the carpet, pulling her son into an embrace so fierce and desperate that it made my chest ache.
“You climbed the stairs?” she whispered into his hair, her voice cracking with unshed tears. “Marcus, I told you never to wander off! You could have gotten hurt!”
“I had to, Mom,” Marcus mumbled against her shoulder, his small arms wrapping around her neck. “The bad man was going to hurt Mr. Whitmore.”
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I watched them for a long, quiet moment, realizing then that while my office was filled with marble, gold, and multi-million-dollar contracts, the true wealth of Whitmore Tower wasn't locked in a safe—it was standing right here in a faded navy shirt and a worn-out cardigan.
And I was going to make sure nobody ever threatened them again.
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