That Answer Is Enough
Marcus's palm was unpleasantly slick with cold sweat.
That anxiety of his was an emotion that clashed violently with the outward face the Vance camp still presented to the world.
From the outside, the shape of the race remained Richard Vance's overwhelming lead.
A ten-point gap in the polls. In an election, even an eight-point lead gets labeled "likely to win." This was a full ten.
At that margin, the outcome was essentially decided.
The idiots inside the camp were already preparing to pop champagne, crowing that all they had to do was hold the line and victory was theirs.
But Marcus, who knew the truth, felt his insides blacken and burn.
Really, that stubborn bastard who never knows when to quit.
Marcus ground his teeth thinking of Sterling. When a twenty-point chasm had opened up, any ordinary candidate would have long since raised the white flag and dropped out. That would have been normal.
Sterling had held on even in the face of those crushing numbers.
And the moment a crack appeared in the form of the black-money scandal, he had sunk his teeth in like a madman and closed the gap in an instant.
Before anyone knew it, the twenty-point lead had become ten.
The problem was that even that "ten percent" was not real.
Marcus and Richard Vance.
Only the two of them knew the truth.
The current poll numbers were an illusion, cleverly "massaged" by pouring in that vast black fund.
Strictly speaking it was not illegal manipulation, but a deception dressed up as legality, powered by money and influence.
First they had rigged the sample. They had sprinkled black money to jack up response rates only in the districts and age brackets overwhelmingly favorable to Richard.
Then they had slapped on a single line of excuse—"statistical adjustment"—and stamped out the magic number of ten percent.
Once that massaged figure was blasted across the giant media outlets Richard held in a death grip as "ten-point lead confirmed," the bandwagon effect kicked in at once.
Put out data that stuck out from the herd and got it wrong, and you were finished in the industry.
Because of that cowardly physiology, the remaining minor polling outfits had obediently kneaded their own numbers into line with the big media's and tucked their tails.
It was a fake support rate maintained by crushing and silencing everyone with astronomical black money so that no one would notice.
That astronomical black fund had been necessary precisely to keep the filthy number games going.
The real support rate has narrowed more than expected. No—I'm certain. He might even have closed it to the five-percent range.
Five percent. In an election, a five-point gap is called a "competitive lead."
The frontrunner still held the initiative, but if the second-place candidate dropped one more decisive mega-scandal or landed a clean counterpunch in a televised debate, the whole board could flip overnight.
Goddamn it.
He could almost hear the sound of the glittering sandcastle built of money, lies, and media beginning to collapse around his ears.
Money. Right. I just need clean money. Plug the holes with cash somehow and buy time.
If they could control public opinion with money and hold out until Election Day so that Richard sat in the mayor's chair, every one of these crises would become a passing incident.
Even if Sterling kept gnawing at the black-money issue after the win, once they had the overwhelming power of the New York mayoralty they could cover it up and clean it up somehow.
It's fine. No one knows this hideous truth.
At least from the outside, the Vance camp was still not a collapsing sandcastle.
It had taken a hit from the scandal, but it remained an overwhelming, massive fortress.
I will not fall here. Not me.
Ten years of crawling around like a pair of hands and feet, handling every filthy job under Richard Vance.
I will put Vance in the mayor's seat, and I will rise with him.
Marcus tightened his tie, drew a deep breath, wiped the damp sweat from his palms on his trousers, and pushed open the door of the Onus penthouse where Christian Kingsley—one of the men who ruled New York—was waiting.
In that instant, the anxiety and heavy shadow that had hung over Marcus's face vanished completely.
As if he had never fretted for a second, a winner's ease and a confident business smile settled smoothly onto his lips.
"Chairman. Thank you for granting me this meeting."
A perfectly set business smile.
But the scene inside the penthouse was nothing like what Marcus had expected.
Christian Kingsley sat on a top-grade sofa, smoking a cigar.
And across from him sat an unidentified man whose face was sealed tight behind sunglasses and a mask.
Stranger still, the atmosphere between the two looked distinctly familiar. Just as Marcus was forcing the fluster from his expression and starting toward Kingsley—
"Skip the formalities."
Kingsley crushed the cigar out in the ashtray and answered offhandedly.
"You came all this way, so if you've got something prepared, say it."
The sunglassed man sitting opposite Kingsley grated on Marcus badly, but he deliberately averted his eyes and kept the perfect business smile in place.
"I'll be direct. I've come on behalf of Candidate Richard Vance's campaign to request the Chairman's official sponsorship."
"Sponsorship, is it."
Kingsley propped his chin and tilted his head.
"Odd, though. That noisy black-money scandal blew up a few days ago, and Vance is still sitting on an overwhelming ten-point lead. Victory's as good as locked, so why do you suddenly need my money?"
To the sharp question that struck the exact center, Marcus answered in a soft, unhurried voice.
"It would be a lie to claim the coffers are overflowing. It's true the scandal has temporarily frozen the money lines of our existing backers."
He conceded a portion of the crisis while letting not a shred of anxiety show—a calm, composed posture.
"But as the Chairman said, we remain the overwhelming frontrunner by ten points. A scandal like that won't shake the win. We simply need a little 'clean-sourced capital' to keep the camp running steadily to the finish line."
Marcus dipped his head slightly, eyes gleaming. The manner was exquisitely polite and smooth, as if packed with sincerity.
"In an election, the hand extended in hard times becomes the most expensive invoice of all, wouldn't you say?"
He paused a beat, reading Kingsley's reaction. Time to dangle the bait that would hook him.
"If you help us through this one matter, the moment the candidate takes office we will give the Chairman the most secure premium seat in every major project he advances."
Marcus's smile deepened another shade.
"You're boarding the safest, surest victory ship at an excellent moment. I've come to invite you so that we can share the fruits of victory together with the Chairman."
Marcus's fluent, shameless pitch.
But Kingsley was not tempted in the slightest. Instead, still propping his chin as if bored, he shredded the glittering wrapping with a single line.
"Now of all times?"
"······Pardon?"
"When the polls were crushing at the start of the race you held your nose so high you wouldn't even glance our way. A change in attitude means a problem has appeared. You people aren't the type who hand out favors."
Crude to the point of rudeness, yet it nailed the core with perfect accuracy.
Marcus's flawless smile threatened to stiffen by a fraction.
"You're different when you're working, huh? No wonder you're the Chairman."
The unidentified man who had kept silent the entire time suddenly cut into the conversation. At the words that sounded like genuine admiration, Kingsley shrugged and answered with shameless ease.
"What are you talking about? I'm always perfect."
"······."
Marcus's expression hardened further. With him sitting right there, the two of them were trading jokes at their leisure.
Marcus felt humiliation for the first time in a long while. He wanted to shove the chair back and walk out that second, but he could not.
Right now, money was far too urgent.
Watching Marcus shudder with humiliation, Donovan slowly opened his mouth.
"How is it possible that not a single word you said after walking in here was sincere?"
Lying with that much natural ease was practically an art form.
"Share the fruits of victory together? A perfect partnership?"
At the exact moment those slick phrases left Marcus's mouth, Donovan's eyes clearly saw the Color Reading surging across the man's face.
Around the mouth that governed speech and trust, following the Chulnapgwan, a shallow, turbid energy intent on deceiving others writhed like a snake.
At the same time, over both cheekbones—the seats of partners and power—a selfish black aura clung thickly.
What those energies meant was unmistakable.
"It didn't look that way to me at all. You were planning to suck out only the sweet juice and throw the rest away without a second thought."
Struck dead-center, Marcus's face went rigid. For the first time a crack split the perfectly set business smile with an audible snap.
"······What the hell kind of nonsense—"
Marcus tried to push back while feigning offense, but Donovan gave him no room.
Donovan's gaze moved to the tip of Marcus's nose—the Jundu.
"Just need a little 'clean-sourced capital' to keep the camp running steadily?"
In the place that governed wealth, extreme thirst and anxiety for clean money burned a raw, furious red.
This was not the level of simply being short on funds.
Desperation was written across the entire face.
"You're out of your mind desperate for money right now, aren't you?"
"We need money, yes, but not to that degree. It's a temporary situation. Our victory remains unchanged."
"Nice line. No change in the victory?"
Donovan let out a cold snort of laughter and fixed his eyes on Marcus. His gaze shifted to the tip of Marcus's chin and both cheeks.
The vivid blue terror that rises when the foundation of a life is about to collapse was smeared wetly across Marcus's lower face.
Confirming that vicious color of fear, Donovan spoke coldly.
"Then why are you so terrified?"
"······!"
"You're shaking like everything could come down tomorrow, and you're talking about victory?"
Without money, there is no victory. That man's face was screaming it.
And yet every scrap of this terror and anxiety was being felt by the number-two man of a campaign supposedly about to crush the race with a ten-point lead?
Wait.
For all of this to make sense, one more piece had to be added.
"It isn't ten percent, is it?"
"······What the hell are you talking about!"
Marcus's voice cracked upward. The mask of the always-leisurely, arrogant second-in-command tore, and raw panic spilled out.
"The official polls prove it! Our camp is still holding an overwhelming ten-point—"
"Thanks."
Donovan sliced the sentence clean and smirked.
The instant the strong denial left his mouth, the blue terror clinging to Marcus's chin twisted denser and uglier still.
The turbid energy around his mouth surged, screaming with his entire face that he himself was lying.
Confirming that naked reaction, the final puzzle piece locked perfectly into place inside Donovan's head.
"That answer is enough."
Donovan turned to Kingsley with a face full of mischief and asked,
"How about it? At this point, wouldn't it be smarter to put the money behind Sterling's camp instead of Vance?"
To that light question, Kingsley answered with a matching mischievous smile.
"That sounds better. If the gap were huge it might be different, but with a margin that small, one round of my support would be more than enough to flip the board and overtake."
Marcus's eyes flooded with pure horror at the exchange.
Impossible······.
Christian Kingsley. That giant capitalist who toyed with the power of New York was changing the candidate he would back—millions of dollars on the line—on a single casual remark from a man whose name he did not even know?
The moment that monstrous man pointed the direction, a titan of New York nodded without a word of protest and moved.
Gulp.
Dry saliva scraped down his throat with difficulty.
Donovan looked at the ashen Marcus and asked quietly,
"I'll give you one last chance to get out."
Marcus's pupils shook violently.
Betrayal. The cliff-edge choice of selling the master he had served like hands and feet for ten years and finding his own path to survival.
When Marcus bit his lip and could not answer at once, Donovan added one more line in a cool, dry voice.
"You know I don't actually need you, right? Think carefully before you answer. Your value is highest right now."
Thud.
The words smashed what remained of Marcus's composure while simultaneously becoming his only lifeline.
The ten-percent support rate being fake had already been exposed. The moment Kingsley's massive capital poured into the Sterling camp, Richard Vance was finished.
Stay on the sinking ship and go down as a criminal, or walk out on his own two feet right now and survive by selling "Vance's dirty secrets" as the price.
His value was highest only at this exact moment—while he still held the card that could completely sever Vance's throat.
But no matter how desperate he was, he could not stick his neck out empty-handed.
"······I want concrete guarantees."
Marcus licked his parched lips and forced the words out.
"If I hand over Vance, what happens to me? If I'm just a card to be used and thrown away, I'd rather—"
"Immunity."
Donovan stared straight into Marcus's shaking eyes and spoke flatly.
"I'll move the federal prosecutors attached to the Sterling camp. Full immunity, depending on how solid the evidence you deliver is. Even if public opinion forces us to put you inside no matter what······ I'll get you transferred to Otisville Federal Prison."
Marcus's eyes flew wide.
Otisville Federal Prison. The place white-collar criminals in America went—the so-called "Club Fed."
Instead of iron cells, private barracks. Tennis courts. Kosher meals. America's finest emperor prison.
Donovan grinned and drove the spike home.
"That's not a prison—it's a resort, right? Even in the worst case, a few months of rest there and you're out. How about it? Isn't that enough for the price of Vance's neck?"
Full immunity for the core operator of the black-money scandal, or at worst a stint at Otisville.
It was the most perfect, miraculous set of terms Marcus could possibly imagine.
And right beside him sat the titan who could turn those absurd terms into reality in a single breath—Christian Kingsley—silently aligning himself with Donovan's will.
A long silence stretched.
After an agony that drained the blood from his face, Marcus squeezed his bloodshot eyes shut and slowly nodded.