CHAPTER 23 — I CHOOSE TO BELIEVE #2
I turned to him. “No.”
“You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”
“I do. You’re going to say I’m being impulsive.
That Noah manipulates me. That Henry is compromised.
That the article creates vulnerability. That the team needs stability.
That our family has suffered enough. You’ll use all the pretty words to make me take a step back and let you decide the safe distance between me and the truth. No.”
Noah let out a short breath beside me. Henry Bennett looked at me as if seeing something that could have happened four years ago but didn’t. That hurt. It wasn’t admiration I wanted from him. It was proof that we’d arrived too late—but maybe not too late for everything.
“Gentlemen,” one of the security guards said, clearly uncomfortable. “Maybe it would be better to take this conversation to coordination.”
“Excellent idea,” I said. “Let’s all go. With Noah’s bag, Henry’s folder, and the hallway cameras recording that Julian tried to confiscate material potentially relevant to an internal investigation.”
The guard looked at Julian.
That look was small, but it changed everything. Power only seemed absolute as long as no one around realized they could become an accomplice too. Julian noticed it the same moment I did. The smile returned, colder, smaller.
“No one is confiscating anything,” he said. “I was requesting that institutional material remain under appropriate custody.”
“Appropriate custody isn’t your hand,” Noah replied, and his voice returned with a firmness that made my chest tighten. “Never again.”
The hallway became charged with an almost physical tension.
For a second, I thought Julian would still try.
That he’d raise his hand, give an order, call in someone above the security guards.
But footsteps sounded behind me before he could decide.
Mason appeared at the end of the hallway with Valerie Cross beside him, both wet from rain, breathless from rushing.
Valerie already had the recorder and her phone in hand.
Mason looked at me, at Noah, at Julian, and at the security guards.
“Wow,” Mason said, without smiling. “What a cozy family reunion. Anyone want to pretend nothing’s happening, or are we past that?”
Valerie didn’t wait for an invitation. “My recorder is on. And before anyone threatens a lawsuit, we’re in an administrative hallway, in front of institutional security, discussing an already published article and documents of public interest on university grounds.
Anyone who wants to go on the record can start now. ”
Julian stared at Valerie as if she were a chess piece that had moved out of turn. “Miss Cross, you’ve already published an irresponsible article full of personal insinuations without sufficient context.”
“I published because my editor was pressured to run it before I could talk to Noah,” she replied, and this time there was real anger in her voice.
“And because someone leaked photos with a ready-made narrative attached, insinuating sexual conflict to deflect from the medical documents. If that someone is standing in this hallway, I’d love to hear their side of it. ”
Her gaze landed on Julian. She didn’t accuse him out loud. She didn’t need to.
I felt Noah go rigid beside me. The photo. The article. The timing. Everything pointed to the same hand that always got there first to control the damage. Julian didn’t react like a guilty man; he reacted like someone offended at being exposed.
“This is absurd,” he said. “I won’t participate in an ambush.”
“Strange,” Mason said. “I thought ambushes with security guards were your favorite part.”
Julian looked at him with contempt. “You’re the goalie, right?”
“Depends. If this turns into a crime, I’d rather be called a witness.”
The comment didn’t get a laugh from anyone, but it did something important: it broke the solemnity Julian used as armor. He wasn’t king of the hallway. He was a man in an expensive suit facing people who were starting to ask questions.
My phone vibrated. Marjorie. I answered on speaker without asking permission.
“Damon, I’m on my way to the old wing,” she said, her voice sharp, direct.
“I got the article, the medical reports from your case, and a message from Mason saying old documents were found. No one hands anything to internal legal before I make copies and bring in independent counsel. Is Noah with you?”
I looked at Noah.
“He is.”
“Good. Noah, don’t hand your bag to anyone. Henry, if you’re listening, same goes for the folder. Julian, if you’re present, I’d advise against talking to security about retaining material without an outside attorney. I’m recording this call.”
For the first time that afternoon, Julian looked truly cornered.
Not by force. By record. By witness. By strategy.
Noah was right: men like Julian feared losing control of the narrative more than they feared a punch.
There, in that old hallway, surrounded by folders, phones, a running recorder, and my body finally in the right place, he was starting to lose control.
“You’re all making a serious mistake,” Julian said, his voice low.
“No,” I said. “I made the serious mistake four years ago. This is the beginning of the correction.”
Noah turned his face toward me. His gaze held so much that I almost lost my next breath. Pain, doubt, anger, a hope he seemed to hate allowing himself. I didn’t try to grab that hope. It wasn’t mine to take. I just stayed beside him while we waited for Marjorie to arrive.
The minutes that followed were all about containment.
Marjorie appeared with an outside attorney on call via tablet, Valerie recorded questions, Henry handed over the gray folder with slightly trembling hands, Noah kept the bag on his shoulder until copies were made in front of everyone.
Julian stayed, because leaving would look like guilt and staying might let him calculate a new defense.
I watched him the way you watch an opponent shift tactics, no longer as a brother who knows better.
When the flash drive was finally duplicated on a laptop Marjorie had brought, Noah stood near the improvised table in the archive, arms crossed, face exhausted.
I kept my distance for a few minutes, not out of coldness, but because his body language demanded space even when my instincts screamed to get close.
I only approached when everyone was too busy reviewing copies and Valerie was comparing dates with documents she already had.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
Noah looked at me sideways. “Does that question have a useful answer?”
“Probably not.”
“Then no.”
I nodded. His honesty was a blade, and in that moment, I’d rather bleed from truth than be spared by a lie.
“I should have said it in the locker room,” I said. “That you tried to warn me. That I had reasons to believe you. That no one there had the right to reduce you to that article while I stood there calculating what I could afford to expose. I should have chosen you more clearly.”
He was quiet for a few seconds. The room around us kept moving, but we seemed caught in a narrow pause.
“Yes,” Noah said.