Chương 2
She looked at her daughter and saw the same expression she had seen when Lily was five years old and asked why other children had bigger houses.
A child trying to understand a world built by adults.
“He works with Mr. Bennett.”
“Is he nice?”
Catherine almost smiled.
“That depends who you ask.”
The elevator chimed.
Both of them looked toward the hallway.
The doors opened.
James Wilson stepped out carrying a leather briefcase.
He was in his early fifties, with silver at his temples and a tired expression that made him look older than his photographs.
He stopped when he saw Catherine.
Then he looked at Lily.
His face changed slightly.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
“You’re Catherine’s daughter.”
Catherine stepped between him and Lily.
“Yes.”
James smiled politely.
“I didn’t know she brought you here.”
“She doesn’t usually.”
His eyes moved toward Maxwell’s office.
“The floor should be empty.”
Catherine said nothing.
James noticed.
People who spent years in executive rooms became skilled at reading silence.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
The answer came too quickly.
James looked at her.
Then at the phone.
Then at the folder.
Catherine saw his eyes move.
Only for a second.
But she saw it.
A tiny calculation.
A person checking what had been discovered.
James walked forward.
“Mr. Bennett asked me to pick up some files.”
“What files?”
He stopped.
The question surprised him.
“Financial files.”
“Which ones?”
James’s expression hardened.
“Catherine, I don’t think this concerns you.”
He was not cruel.
That almost made it worse.
Cruel people were easy to understand.
People who believed they were entitled were harder.
Catherine felt the old instinct to step back.
She had spent years avoiding conflict with people who could remove her from a job with one complaint.
Then she looked at Lily.
Her daughter was watching everything.
Learning from everything.
Catherine hated that.
She hated that the world was teaching her child fear before confidence.
“The phone rang,” Lily said.
James turned toward her.
“What?”
“The phone rang.”
Catherine’s heart dropped.
“Lily.”
“She answered in Mandarin,” James said quietly.
The air changed.
“You speak Mandarin?”
Lily nodded.
James stared at her longer than he should have.
Then he smiled.
A small smile.
A careful one.
“That’s impressive.”
Lily did not smile back.
Something about him felt different now.
Not because he was dangerous.
Because he was pretending nothing had changed.
James reached for the blue folder.
Catherine moved first.
Not quickly.
Not dramatically.
Just enough.
Her hand rested on the folder.
“Mr. Wilson.”
He looked at her fingers.
Then at her face.
“Yes?”
“Maybe Mr. Bennett should decide what leaves his office.”
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Outside the windows, snow continued falling over Manhattan.
Inside the office, a cleaning woman who had spent years being invisible quietly held onto the one thing everyone else had overlooked.
The truth was already in the room.
Nobody had known how to see it.
Nobody had known how to see it.
Catherine kept her hand on the folder until James Wilson slowly lifted both palms.
“Okay,” he said.
His voice was calm, but the calm felt practiced.
“Maybe we should all take a second before anyone makes assumptions.”
Catherine noticed the choice of words.
Not before anyone panics.
Not before anyone gets hurt.
Before anyone makes assumptions.
It was the kind of sentence people used when they wanted to move a conversation away from facts and toward feelings.
“I’m not making assumptions,” Catherine said.
“I’m asking questions.”
James looked at her with a faint expression of irritation.
It disappeared quickly, but not quickly enough.
“About financial documents you don’t understand?”
The words landed harder because there was truth hidden inside them.
Catherine did not know corporate law.
She did not know investment structures.
She did not know how companies moved millions of dollars without anyone seeing the movement until it was too late.
But she knew when someone was trying to make another person feel small.
“I understand when someone tells me not to worry,” she said.
“And then acts worried.”
James looked away.
Only for a moment.
But Lily saw it.
Children often noticed things adults trained themselves to ignore.
“Mr. Wilson,” Lily said quietly.
James turned.
“Yes?”
“Who is Chen Wei?”
The question changed his face.
Not dramatically.
Not enough for someone who did not know him.
But Catherine saw his shoulders stiffen.
“Who told you that name?”
“You asked me if I knew Mandarin.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Lily looked confused.
Catherine felt a sudden protectiveness rise in her chest.
“Don’t speak to her like she did something wrong.”
James sighed.
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
For the first time that evening, James looked less like a powerful executive and more like a man who had lost control of a situation.
“I need to make a call.”
He reached for his phone.
Catherine watched him carefully.
“Who are you calling?”
“Maxwell.”
“Where is he?”
James stopped.
The question stayed between them.
“I don’t know.”
That answer surprised Catherine.
“You don’t know where your closest adviser is?”
James looked at the folder again.
Then at the snow-covered windows.
“I was supposed to meet him tonight.”
“Supposed to?”
“He canceled.”
“Why?”
James rubbed his forehead.
The movement seemed tired rather than angry.
“Because he said he needed time to think.”
“About what?”
James did not answer.
The silence told Catherine more than the words would have.
Lily moved closer to her mother.
The executive floor suddenly felt much larger than before.
The expensive furniture.
The polished walls.
The empty offices.
All of it seemed less like a place where powerful people controlled everything and more like a place where powerful people were sometimes just scared people with better clothes.
James finally made his call.
It went straight to voicemail.
He called again.
Nothing.
A third time.
Still nothing.
“Mr. Bennett doesn’t ignore calls,” James said.
Catherine watched his confidence weaken.
“You sound worried.”
“I am.”
The honesty surprised her.
May you like
James looked toward Lily.
“Did Chen Wei say anything else?”
