The door slammed shut behind them when Cal finally returned home with Marcus in tow. Stella greeted them excitedly, though her happy tail-wagging quickly shifted to concerned whines when she noted Marcus's sorry state. Cal dragged him to the couch, dumping him there as delicately as he could, which wasn't much considering the sheer size of him. Stella dutifully climbed up as well, making a circle and laying down on Marcus's legs. He groaned, and Cal made his way to the kitchen to get water. "We should really get you to a hospital," he said as he returned, helping Marcus to lift himself slightly so he could drink.

"And tell them what? This shit will wear off. I'm fine, boss. You shouldn't have come, I could have taken him."

Cal frowned, frustrated. "He practically shot you up with horse tranquilizer. You weren't going anywhere if they didn't want you to." What he did find comical, however, was the mental image of small, skinny Danny attempting to drag Marcus from a bar into the back of a waiting van. There was no way he'd done it alone, but no one else had been in the abandoned building aside from the three of them, as far as Cal could tell. He wasn't sure what the implications of that were.

[i]I want in,[/i] Danny had said. Cal sat in a chair beside the couch and put his face in his hands, trying to think through how to best go about this. He didn't take too kindly to demands being made of him, or people forcing their way into his operation. Hell, if Danny had just asked, Cal likely would have found a place for him beyond the IT role he clearly wasn't satisfied with. If this kind of incident had occurred with any of his other guys, he would have nipped the problem in the bud right away. But Danny had ensured Cal knew that he had Dead Man's Switches in place -- if Cal did anything to hurt him, Danny had set things up in such a way that all of the information proving Cal's involvement in the criminal world would be released to the press and the feds. It could be a bluff, but Danny was a smart guy and Cal was sure he could set up that sort of thing. 

"I don't know what to do," he said to no one in particular, not sure just how coherent Marcus was at the moment. "I can't let him have anything to do with my operations after what he did -- he'd clearly vindictive, and if I so much as give him a position he doesn't like as much as another, he'll throw a hissy fit and threaten to expose us. But if I don't bring him in, he'll do the same thing." Cal laughed without humor. "All these years in the business and I've somehow never had to deal with blackmail before. What's the status quo on dealing with these things?" 

Marcus responded with a snore, having fallen asleep on the couch, and Cal sighed. He had to figure this out. 

He considered hiring someone else to knock him off. Danny had only specified that if [i]Cal[/i] hurt him, he'd expose Circus Corp. Perhaps Cal could orchestrate something that took care of the issue, but seemed like a totally random act of violence that had nothing to do with him. 

Or, he could do some clean-up. Close the accounts that Danny had accessed, revoke access, move things around in such a way that any proof Danny had before would now be obsolete, and if he published it, Cal could claim it was forgery.

His head hurt as he reeled through his options, or rather lack thereof. He hated that Danny had any power over him, that he'd let his guard slip for long enough to allow something like this to happen to his best friend. And speaking of letting his guard slip...

He pulled out his phone, checking the screen for notifications. Despite everything he'd endured this evening, he still hoped he would find a text from Ana. But there was nothing. How could his day go from so wonderful to so terrible in the matter of hours?