Chapter 3 - THE BROKEN ARM
Arthur did not sit.
“Someone has been taking advantage of the household,” he said. “I’ll investigate it.”
“You’ve already investigated it,” Declan replied. “Your office approved the deductions.”
“Routine accounting. I can explain every line.”
“Good. Start with the fifty thousand dollars you say Clary’s brother owes.”
Arthur’s eyes flicked toward her. “She told you that?”
“She told me what your collectors told her.”
“Then she has misunderstood. Her brother borrowed money from a private lender. The lender has been using our name to collect. I was trying to contain the embarrassment.”
Clary looked at him. “You met them in the garage.”
Arthur’s mouth tightened. “You were cleaning nearby. You couldn’t possibly know what we discussed.”
“I know you told them to make me understand.”
“Enough,” Declan said.
He turned to Marco, who had returned to the doorway. “Find the original loan record. Not a copy from Arthur’s office. The lender’s original.”
Marco nodded.
Arthur finally sat, slowly and carefully. “Declan, you’re letting an employee’s personal problems distract you from a room full of people who expect leadership.”
“Leadership doesn’t require me to ignore fraud.”
“Fraud?” Arthur laughed without humor. “That’s a serious accusation.”
“Then you’ll have no problem proving it false.”
For several seconds, neither man spoke. Arthur knew Declan’s silences. He knew when a question was an invitation and when it was a warning. This silence was a warning.
Arthur rose. “I’ll return with the records.”
“Leave your office keys.”
Arthur’s face changed. “You can’t be serious.”
“Put them on the desk.”
Arthur removed the keys and placed them beside the file. As he walked out, he looked at Clary.
“You should be careful about the stories you tell,” he said softly.
Declan stood. “Say another word to her and you’ll answer to me.”
Arthur left.
At two fifteen, Marco called from the garage. A driver had identified the snake-ring man as Victor Saye, a collector connected to a gambling room operating behind a closed sports bar on the south side. The second man was Lenny Pike. Both had received transfers from an account controlled by Arthur’s office.
Declan sent a team to the location with strict instructions to bring Tommy out safely and call the police if anyone was in immediate danger. He did not want a rescue turning into another excuse for violence.
Clary refused to sit while they waited. She paced the office, stopping whenever a phone buzzed. At last, Marco called.
“We found him. He’s hurt, but conscious. We’re taking him to a hospital.”
Clary covered her mouth. The sound that escaped her was half sob, half breath.
“Can I see him?”
“Yes,” Declan said. “A car is ready.”
She turned to him. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. He needs a doctor, and we still don’t know who authorized this.”
At the hospital, Tommy lay in a curtained room with his left arm in a temporary splint and bruising along his cheek. He looked younger than his twenty-two years. When Clary rushed to his bedside, he tried to smile and failed.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
She took his uninjured hand. “You’re alive. We’ll talk about the rest later.”
Tommy’s gaze moved to Declan, who stayed near the doorway rather than crowding the bed.
“Is that him?” Tommy asked.
“Who?” Clary said.
“The man they said owned the debt.”
Declan stepped closer. “My name is Declan Knox. Did someone tell you I ordered them to hurt you?”
Tommy swallowed. “They said the boss wanted the debt collected. They said if I complained, they’d take it out on my sister.”
“Did you see paperwork?”
“One of them had a ledger. He made me sign a page saying I owed more than fifty thousand. I never borrowed that much.”
“Did you sign anything when you first borrowed the money?”
“Twenty thousand. I know I did. I was stupid, but I know the amount.”
Declan glanced at Marco. “Get a copy of that ledger.”
Tommy looked terrified. “Are you going to have me killed?”
“No,” Declan said. “But I need you to tell the truth, even if it makes you look bad.”
Tommy nodded, tears gathering in his eyes.
“I gambled the money away. Clary told me to stop. I kept going because I thought I could win it back. Then they broke my arm and said she’d pay if I didn’t.”
Clary squeezed his hand. “You should have told me.”
“I was ashamed.”
“So was I,” she whispered. “I thought I could fix everything by working harder.”
Declan watched the siblings, feeling an unfamiliar discomfort. Their mistakes were ordinary and human. The machinery built around them had turned those mistakes into a weapon.
In the corridor, he called his attorney.
“Freeze every payment routed through Arthur’s office. Preserve the records. No one destroys anything, and no one threatens a witness. I want an independent audit first thing in the morning.”
When he ended the call, Clary stood beside him.
“Will you send Tommy away?”
“No.”
“Will you send me away?”
“No.”
She searched his face. “Then what happens now?”
“Now we find out what Arthur has been doing with my name.”
“And after that?”
Declan looked back through the glass at Tommy’s hospital bed.
“After that, you decide what you want your life to look like. Not Arthur. Not me. You.”
May you like
Clary looked as though she had never heard a powerful man say those words before.
Neither had Declan.
