Chapter 7 - What Protection Really Means
Ethan met Claire at Harbor House in a room that normally hosted tutoring. The independent community attorney sat with them. Ethan had arrived without his usual black suit, wearing a plain navy shirt and carrying a printed sheet that outlined security options and their limitations. He did not pretend any option could eliminate every risk. He did not mention Dominic's feelings.
“We can provide a professional escort on days you request it,” he said. “Or the community group can choose a separate company and have its invoices paid from a safety fund through the attorney. You decide which option, if any, suits you.”
Claire chose an independent provider for two weeks and asked for the arrangement to be reassessed. She declined anyone being stationed outside her apartment indefinitely. Ethan accepted both decisions. When he left, she looked at the attorney.
“That was almost disappointingly normal.”
“Normal is what we're aiming for,” the attorney said.
The threatening photograph had been taken from a public sidewalk. Police documented the report, and the community group's attorney forwarded the information to the investigators reviewing the financial records. Nobody identified a culprit that day. Claire resisted the temptation to invent one. Adrian's messages were disturbing, and the audit might have angered others, but she needed evidence rather than a satisfying theory.
At school, Claire resumed the practical work she could do: lesson plans, parent calls, and an afternoon spent helping a child find the courage to read aloud. The boy, Mateo, stammered over the first paragraph. Another child began to snicker. Claire waited until the room settled, then asked whether Mateo wanted to continue or take a break. He chose to continue. When he finished, she thanked him for reading, not for being brave enough to entertain an audience.
That evening she told Jenna about it. “I keep asking myself whether I'm demanding too much from Dominic.”
“Because he behaved decently in one situation?”
“Because he keeps respecting my decisions.”
“That's not a romantic miracle, Claire. It's the minimum. It can still be meaningful.”
Claire laughed. She had been so angry about being treated as a prize by Adrian that she sometimes treated attraction itself like a trap. She could acknowledge liking Dominic without calling him safe, and she could recognize genuine improvement without becoming responsible for it.
Dominic, meanwhile, attended an emergency board meeting where the audit committee disclosed several questionable transactions. Coastal Shield had invoiced companies for guard hours no employee records supported. Money had moved through a subcontractor associated with Sal. An internal approval system required Dominic's signature for large renewals, and he had signed without demanding source documentation. Outside counsel was preparing reports for the appropriate authorities and notices for customers who might be owed money.
One director argued that admitting poor oversight would destroy the Russo brand. “People already assume the worst of us,” he said.
“Then we give them documented facts,” Dominic replied. “Not another campaign that says we're misunderstood.”
The board voted to freeze payments to Coastal Shield, appoint an independent monitor, and commission a restitution assessment. Sal's access to company systems was terminated pending investigation, with safeguards to preserve records. Dominic consented to the monitor's authority even where it limited his own decisions. The vote cost him influence. He was no longer the man who could simply settle a dispute by making a call.
Rosa visited him afterward with groceries. She set the bags on his kitchen counter and watched him carry them inside without asking what was in them. “You look terrible,” she said.
“Thank you, Ma.”
“You look like your father when someone told him no, except you haven't broken a plate.”
Dominic paused. Rosa had rarely spoken so directly about Antonio. She helped him put away tomatoes while telling him about a woman whose husband had lost his dockside business after refusing to pay old protection fees. The woman had volunteered at Harbor House for twenty years. Rosa remembered her name: Evelyn Mercer. Dominic wrote it down and gave it to the independent monitor, rather than sending a check accompanied by an apology nobody had requested.
The next public meeting was harder than the first. Some residents believed the entire land sale was a pretext to enrich insiders; others wanted immediate redevelopment because the center's roof leaked and the neighborhood needed jobs. Claire helped Mrs. Delgado arrange equal speaking time. She refused to let the room turn into a referendum on Dominic's character. They were there to determine what could legally and practically be done with a building on which people depended.
After the meeting, Dominic approached Claire in the busy hallway. He stayed a comfortable distance away. “I wanted you to know the threatening message was reported and preserved,” he said.
“The attorney told me. Thank you for not showing up at my apartment.”
“I wanted to.”
“I know.”
“That's why I didn't.”
Claire studied him. “You still think the right thing is the one that keeps you close enough to act.”
“Sometimes.”
“Try the thing that leaves other people free.”
He looked at the open doors of the gym, where neighbors were carrying chairs back into storage. “I'm trying.”
Her phone buzzed. A message from Nora informed her that Adrian had been removed from the school grounds after attempting to question students about her. The district had documented the incident and warned him against returning. Claire showed the message to the community attorney, not Dominic. She could see Dominic notice her alarm, and could also see him choose not to demand an explanation.
May you like
Outside, rain began to strike the pavement. Dominic held the door for an elderly man carrying folding signs. Claire watched the man thank him and go. For a second she wanted to cross the hallway, touch Dominic's arm, and say she was glad he was there. Instead she went home with Jenna. The timing wasn't right, and desire didn't change the unfinished questions between them.
Just before midnight, the attorney called: the independent valuation had arrived. Harbor House's parcel had been underpriced by nearly a million dollars in the proposed transaction. A separate email suggested someone had deliberately excluded the center's long-term lease from the financial summary sent to the trust board. The property case, already serious, had just become much bigger than Dominic's family name.
