Chapter 12: Term One

Eli's hand closed around Porter's wrist.

He did not squeeze. He just held it there, and Porter's fingers opened on their own.

"Don't touch her again," Eli said.

"Or what?"

"Or you'll find out how I learned to walk."

Porter took a step back.

Then two men in dark suits came down the stairs behind him.

They were Frederick's security, and they took his arms from either side.

"Mr. Ellsworth. Your father wants you in the car."

"Get off me. I'm talking to my wife."

"Now, sir."

They moved him down the steps with his heels scraping.

Over his shoulder he shouted my name. I did not turn around.

The cameras at the bottom of the stairs flashed all at once.

"This way," Eli said. "Not through the front."

He led me down a service passage at the side of the building.

It smelled of snow and wet brick and kitchen smoke.

His car was waiting at the end of it with its lights off.

I stopped under a single bulb above a steel door and the cold finally reached me.

My hands were shaking too hard to hold my own sleeves.

"You put my evidence on a wall," I said.

Eli stood two feet from me with snow melting in his hair.

"Yes."

"You didn't ask."

"No."

"You had my screenshots from Thursday and you put them up in front of four hundred people."

"You did not say one word to me."

"I know."

"I was going to do it on my own. In my own way."

"You did it in your own way," he said. "I only turned on the lights."

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