Too late

Chapter 1: First encounter

The rooftop is packed with people from three different companies, all dressed up and talking business behind polite smiles. Cresthill has just closed a deal with Halden Cross, and this party is supposed to celebrate that.

Marcus stands near the front with a glass in his hand, waiting for the noise to settle before he speaks.

"Thank you all for coming," he says. "This partnership took eight months to close, and I know most of you worked long nights to get it done. I don't say thank you often, so take this as the one time I mean it."

A few people laugh. That's Marcus and his dry jokes.

"To Halden Cross, and to whatever comes next." He raises his glass. The crowd raises theirs back and drinks, and the noise picks up again as people go back to their conversations.

Marcus Reyes is thirty-one years old and has been running Cresthill Industries for almost nine years. He's tall, broad through the shoulders, always in a suit that fits like it was made for him. People who work under him rarely look him directly in the eye for longer than they have to.

He isn't cruel, not in the way some executives are. He just doesn't waste time being anything other than direct, and most people mistake that for coldness. The interns call him intimidating behind his back, and the women in the office gossip about his jaw and his hands whenever he's out of earshot.

He comes down from the small platform where he gave the toast and makes his way back to where Dale is standing near the bar.
"Good speech," Dale says. "Short."

"That's the only kind worth giving."

Dale looks around the rooftop, at the crowd still mingling, drinks in hand. "You've been standing here for twenty minutes just holding a glass. Go talk to someone."

"I'm talking to you."

"I don't count."

Marcus is about to say something back when he notices a woman at the far end of the hallway, past where the crowd thins out. Two men have her between them, one gripping her wrist, the other blocking her path. She's trying to pull free.

Nobody else notices. The crowd is busy with their own conversations, and the space out there is dim, half in shadow past the string lights.

Marcus walks toward them.

By the time he gets close, the woman has already elbowed one of the men in the stomach. The other one grabs her from behind, wrapping an arm around her waist. She stomps down hard on his foot and throws her head back into his face. He swears and lets go for a second, and that's enough for her to twist free.
"Let her go," Marcus says, stepping in.
Both men look at him. They don't look scared, just annoyed. One of them mutters something to the other, and they back off toward the stairwell, disappearing down it before Marcus can get a proper look at either of their faces.
The woman is breathing hard, straightening her dress with quick, sharp movements. She looks more annoyed than shaken.
"Are you alright?" Marcus asks.
"I'm fine." She says it fast, already trying to walk it off. Her leg gives out on the first step and she grabs the wall to keep from falling.
"You're not fine."

"I said I'm fine."

He looks down. Her ankle is already swelling under the hem of her dress. She's twisted it at some point during the struggle and hasn't noticed.

"There's a lounge two floors down. I can get you ice and wrap it."

"I can walk."

"You just proved you can't."

She opens her mouth to argue, then doesn't. Marcus picks her up, one arm under her knees, the other around her back. She goes still for a second, then stops resisting.

"This is unnecessary," she says.

"Probably."

He carries her to the elevator. A few guests look over. Nobody says anything.
The lounge two floors down is mostly empty, just a few chairs and a couch near the window. The noise from the party is quieter there. Marcus sets her down on the couch and finds a first aid kit behind the bar, along with a bag of ice from the small fridge.

"You keep first aid kits at parties?" she asks.
"We keep them everywhere."

She watches him wrap the ice against her ankle with a kitchen towel he's found.

"You didn't have to do that," she says.

"I know."

"Most people would've just called security."

"Security was standing near the bar the whole time and didn't notice."

"That's true," she says.

"You always this calm about everything?"

"Not always." He sits down across from her, elbows on his knees. "Who were they?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know," he repeats.

"I don't." She says it flat.

He looks at her for a second. She isn't shaking. She isn't upset the way most people would be after getting grabbed by two strangers. She's annoyed, mostly at herself.

"You handled yourself pretty well back there," Marcus says. "For someone at a work party."

"I take self defense classes."
"Clearly."

She looks at him properly for the first time since they'd sat down. "You're Marcus Reyes."

"You know who I am?."

"Everyone knows who you are." She says it like a fact. "I didn't expect you to be the one carrying people around."

"I don't usually."

"So I'm special."

"You're the first person tonight who's said something interesting."

She smiles, small and quick. "Cage."

"Cage." He repeats the name. "That's not a name you hear often."

"Well,that's true"

The ice sits on her ankle another ten minutes while they talk about the party, the deal Cresthill has closed, how she'd ended up working at Halden Cross. She doesn't offer much beyond the basics. Marcus doesn't push.

When she says she's fine to leave, he doesn't argue. He walks her down to the car himself, tells the driver where to take her, and waits until she's gone before he goes back up.

The party is still going when he gets back to the rooftop. Someone from Halden Cross gives a short speech about the partnership, people clap, and the band starts playing something slower than before. Marcus stands near the bar most of the night, nodding along to conversations he isn't really part of. Dale keeps dragging him from one group to another, introducing him to people he's already met twice that year.
By midnight, the crowd has thinned out. Waiters start clearing glasses off the tables instead of handing out new ones. The band packs up. People say their goodbyes and head for the elevators, until it's just the cleanup crew and a few people finishing their drinks by the railing.

Marcus leaves a little after one, Dale trailing behind him complaining about someone's speech. They split up in the parking garage, and Marcus drives home.
His apartment is dark when he walks in. He doesn't turn on the main lights, just the one over the kitchen counter. He pours himself a glass of water and stands there drinking it, still in his suit.

He sets the glass down and picks up his phone, scrolls to his head of security and calls.

The man picks up on the second ring. "Mr. Reyes."

"I need the rooftop footage from tonight," Marcus says. "East side, near the bar. Two men, dark suits."

"I'll have it ready within half an hour, sir."

"Morning is fine."

"Understood."

Marcus hangs up without saying anything else.