Skyfall

Chapter Thirty

The next morning, Rebecca was getting out of her car when she saw Louis. "Hey. What are you doing here so early?"

"There were some things I wanted to get done before a meeting this morning." He explained. "What are you doing here this early?"

"Honestly? Do you swear not to tell Harvey?"

"Yeah." Louis nodded. "Of course."

"I'm drowning in paperwork. Between my cases and trying to get caught up on his, I'm just really busy." She laughed nervously.

"Do you need some help?"

"No." She shook her head. "I appreciate it more than you know, but I'll be fine. I just need to get some of these cases finished. Then things will calm down. But if Harvey knew I was struggling it would only distract him and make him feel guiltier than he already does about staying in Boston right now."

"I understand." Louis nodded. "But the offer won't expire. If you need any help you know where to find me."

"I do appreciate that." She smiled. Then she looked over to her right and saw the same two men who were there last night. They were standing in almost the exact same spot and staring straight at her. She slowly turned to Louis.

"Can you try to subtly look over there at those two guys?" She asked, slightly motioning with her head and eyes which direction she wanted him to look.

She guessed that he was trying to be subtle but he ended up being as subtle as a bull in a china shop.

"Ok. What about them?" Louis asked, still staring at them.

"They were here last night too…and I left at 1am." She explained. "They are creeping me out and I just feel weird about the whole thing."

"I'm sure it's nothing to worry about." He assured her.

"Yeah, maybe you're right." She wasn't convinced but followed him into the building anyway.

Harvey entered Marcus' restaurant and looked for Colten. He had only met the man twice. Once was right after Marcus hired him to be the business manager for the restaurants and the other time was at Katie's funeral. Fortunately he remembered what the man looked like. He wanted to come in today and make sure that Colton had things under control while Marcus was in rehab. He spotted Colton sitting at the bar writing in a notebook and headed over.

"I don't know if you remember me…"

"Oh yeah." Colton interrupted. "You're Harvey, right? You're Marcus' brother?"

"That's right." He nodded.

"What can I do for you?"

"Well you know about Marcus' legal troubles, right?"

"Yes." Colton nodded. "I was so glad when Lily told me that Olivia was alright."

"We were too. I don't know what we would have done if she had been hurt any worse." He admitted.

"I was also glad when Lily mentioned Marcus was going to rehab." Colton mentioned. "God knows he needs it."

"Did you know he was drinking?" He asked.

"I didn't know that was becoming an issue for him, but yeah. I saw him drinking here almost every night of the week." Colton explained. "So tell me again, how long is Marcus in rehab for?"

"Two months."

"Shit." Colton whispered. "I was going to quit, but I feel bad about doing it while the guy is in rehab."

"Quitting?" This was news to him. "Why would you be quitting?"

"I can't work for Marcus anymore." Colton explained. "He isn't the type of man I want to work for or associate myself with anymore."

"Is it because of the drinking? The DUI? Because he is getting help for his alcohol issues."

"No." Colton shook his head. He then motioned for Harvey to follow him into the back. He shut the door behind them. "It's because he embezzled $150,000 from the restaurants and then lied about it when I confronted him."

"You have to be mistaken." Harvey defended Marcus. "He wouldn't do that kind of thing."

"I have the proof." Colton unlocked the top drawer of the desk and pulled out a set of papers. "It's all here in the books. Take a look for yourself."

Harvey took a few minutes and looked over the documents. He saw that Marcus really did take the money out two weeks ago and then tried to cover it up. But because he wasn't always the smartest guy in the room, he messed up while trying to cover it up and actually made it easier to find the mistake. "Does he know that you are aware of this?"

"I confronted him about it the night before he got the DUI. We fought about it for a long time. I thought about going to the police, but I don't want him to get into even more trouble than he already is right now. It wouldn't be fair to his kids since they just recently lost their mom. So I really just want to quit and forget about all of this."

"Did he say what the money was for?" Harvey asked. He had a feeling it was money that he was using to cover a gambling debt. But he wanted to have as much information as possible before he confronted Marcus about it.

"He wouldn't say." Colton replied. "I tried at least a dozen times to get him to explain and he wouldn't. He even had the balls to lie to my face and repeatedly deny that he did it."

Harvey sighed. "Can you please just stay on until Marcus gets out of rehab? Then you can quit. Hell, I'll even throw in a bonus if that will help."

"I'll stay, even without the bonus." Colton replied. "I love these restaurants and the people here. I just wish Marcus could get his life together.

"Me too." Harvey sighed deeply. "I appreciate you staying on. If you'll excuse me, I need to go figure out why Marcus is self-imploding with horrible decisions."

"Good luck with that." Colton chuckled.

Rebecca hurried into Louis' office and closed the door behind her. "I think I'm in trouble and I need your help."

"What's wrong?" He asked.

She steadied herself and sat down on his couch. "I just went to the coffee cart and those two guys are still there. They just kept staring at me. It's really starting to creep me out."

"It is odd that they are still there." He agreed.

When she noticed that the guys were still there and still looking at her, she abandoned her plans to get coffee and came straight back. She made a beeline for Louis' office. Normally she would go talk to Donna about it, but she didn't want to have to explain it all to her and she knew that Donna would end up telling Harvey. There was no possible way Donna would keep something like this from Harvey. She was pretty sure Louis would though.

Besides, she wasn't sure there was any reason to tell Harvey. It was most likely a coincidence and she was being overly paranoid.

"They just kept staring at me…again."

"Ok." Louis took a deep breath. "Here is what we are going to do. We are going to leave at the same time tonight. And when we leave, we will see if those guys are still there. But there is no way you are leaving this office by yourself until we know more about this situation."

"Am I being paranoid?"

"It's possible." He shrugged. "They could be surveilling someone else, or they could be after you. But either way, we'll get to the bottom of it."

"Thank you Louis." She breathed a sigh of relief.

"Isn't Charles a former FBI agent?" Louis pointed out. "Maybe he could look into this for you."

"You really think we should bring him in on this?" She wasn't sure if that was a good idea or not.

"It's worth checking into." He shrugged.

"But if we start having him look into things, what if he decides to look a little closer at the other people in Donna's life?" She pointed out.

"You are worried about Mike."

"Yeah." She nodded.

"Ok. I guess we won't call Charles."

Harvey waited in the private room for Marcus to come in. Technically Marcus wasn't allowed visitors until he reached the two week mark of his stay. But since Harvey was also his lawyer, he was able to slip in and was able to have their visit be in a private room. There was video being monitored, but no audio recording. That was a good thing because he didn't want anyone listening to the conversation he was about to have with his younger brother.

All the way from the restaurant to the rehab facility he had tried to remind himself that he had to do his best not to be angry with his brother. But first it was the drunk driving. Then he found out about the gambling. Now there was embezzlement.

He knew that the last couple of months had been difficult for him to say the least. He knew that Marcus was spiraling out of control. But enough was enough.

Marcus came in through the door leading to the living area and sat down across from Harvey.

"I didn't expect to see you so soon." Marcus greeted. "Did something happen? Are the kids ok? Is mom ok? Did something happen with the case?"

"Everyone is fine and there is no news on your case." Harvey explained calmly.

"Then what are you doing here?" Marcus chuckled. "Did you already miss me that much?"

"No. It's not that." He shook his head.

"Then what's going on?"

"I don't feel like I expect too much from you." He sighed. "I don't expect you to be perfect. I certainly don't expect you to be exactly like me. But I do expect you to be honest with me and make sure that I know everything that could blow up in your face."

"What are you talking about Harvey?"

"I'm talking about the fact that I had a very interesting chat with Colton today." He saw Marcus start to squirm. "He told me some very interesting things."

"Like what?"

"C'mon…" He scoffed. "You know exactly what Colton told me. What I want to know is why you didn't tell me. Or why you didn't come to me first instead of stealing $150,000 from your business and then trying to cover it up?"

"Harvey, you wouldn't…"

"No." He interrupted. "Don't Harvey me. I'm tired of hearing that. Your answer better not be that I don't know what it has been like around here the past twenty years or I wouldn't understand. Cut out the bullshit and start telling me the whole truth for once."

Marcus sighed and looked down at the table. "Alright. I started gambling again about four months ago. They were just small bets and I thought I could manage that. I thought I could keep from getting in over my head. But then the small bets got larger and larger and I just kept losing But I couldn't seem to stop gambling. The next thing I knew I owed a bookie $750,000."

"Jesus, Marcus that's a hell of a lot of money…" He sighed. "Why didn't you come to me?"

"I was ashamed, alright? Is that what you want to hear? I felt like shit about it and I panicked. But I still thought I could get the money. I thought about selling the house and the business, but it still wouldn't have been enough."

"Where is this bookie?" He asked. "Do you still owe him anything?"

"I still owe him $500,000." Marcus sighed. "He's listed under Tommy Bonn in my phone."

"I'll take care of the rest of your gambling debt." He sighed. "But there can be no more gambling at all…ever. I'm talking not even small bets."

"Trust me. I don't want to gamble again for the rest of my life. I don't even want to flip a coin."

"That's just the problem though. I feel like I can't trust you anymore. Every time I think I know everything I need to know you spring more stuff on me. I'm not even sure I know who you are anymore."

"Then you really won't like what I'm about to say." Marcus sighed.

He hung his head for a moment before looking at his younger brother. "Let me guess. There is still more to this story than what you've told me."

"Oh yeah."

"Do I want to know?"

"No. You probably don't. I know I wish I didn't know the whole story." Marcus warned. "It is something I wish I could go back in time and stop from happening, but that isn't the way life works. It's also something I haven't told anyone, but since you now know everything else, you deserve to know just how much of a jackass and screw up I really am."

"Ok." Harvey sighed. "Tell me."

"Katie's death…it wasn't a robbery gone wrong. There is a reason they haven't found the people responsible for it. It was a message from Tommy and his people. He was apparently upset that I hadn't paid him back yet and so he retaliated by…"

"By killing your wife?" Harvey interrupted, getting furious all over again. "What the hell, Marcus? Why would you get in this deep with someone like that?"

"I didn't mean to! It snowballed so quickly and I couldn't stop it!" Marcus yelled, starting to cry. "I wish I could take it all back. I wish I could do any one of twenty things differently because then Katie would still be alive. But I can't."

"Let me get this straight." He stated, trying hard not to pummel Marcus into the ground. "Your wife…the mother of your children…she's dead all because you couldn't control yourself with your gambling addiction and you were too stubborn to come to me or anyone else for help?"

"Pretty much." Marcus nodded, continuing to cry.

"I should let you rot in jail for years for the DUI charge." He was so furious that all he wanted to do was beat the shit out of his brother. All of this…the DUI, endangering Olivia's life, Katie's death…all of it was caused by Marcus' selfishness and stubbornness. "I can't even look at you right now without wanting to punch your face into the ground."

"Harvey…"

"No." He held up his finger to silence Marcus. "I don't want to hear anything else from you. You've said enough. Now I've got to go clean up yet another one of your messes." Without another word he left the room.

It was only a few minutes until he was back in the car. He immediately punched the steering wheel several times, using that as a way to try and get some of his anger and frustration out.

He leaned his head back and sighed. This was a terrible situation to be in. He would have to go home and get Marcus' phone, call this Tommy Bonn and figure out how to pay him the rest of the gambling debt. It was the only way to make sure that nothing else happened to anyone in the family. If this bookie was willing to have Katie killed, there was no telling what else he would do.

After that, he wasn't sure what to do. A part of him wanted to just leave Boston and never come back. After knowing the whole story, Marcus definitely didn't deserve his help with anything. But he couldn't do that to the kids. He had to do whatever he could to protect them. His mom wouldn't be able to take care of them by herself and the last thing he wanted was for Ethan and Olivia to end up with strangers.

This was a mess.