Chapter 3 - A DEBT THAT COULD NEVER BE PAIDDeclan ordered the east wing closed and stationed two trusted guards outside Clary's room.
She protested immediately.
“I can't stay here.”
“You can.”
“I have an apartment.”
“An apartment where someone knows your schedule.”
“I have a job at the diner.”
“I'll make sure your employer knows you're taking personal leave.”
“You can't just decide my life for me!”
The force of her voice surprised them both.
Declan studied her.
Most people begged him to make decisions. Clary was terrified of him and still refused to surrender her independence.
“You're right,” he said finally.
She blinked.
“I'm what?”
“I can't decide your life for you. But I can offer protection while we find out who is threatening Tommy.”
“And if I refuse?”
“I'll arrange safe transportation to wherever you want to go. The choice is yours.”
For the first time, she looked uncertain rather than frightened.
“Why are you doing this?”
He could have said it was his responsibility. He could have blamed the Knox name, the organization, or his own anger.
Instead, he told her the truth.
“Because I heard you singing, and I realized you were crying in a house full of people who thought they owned the world.”
Clary looked away.
“That doesn't mean you know me.”
“No. It means I want to.”
She didn't answer.
An hour later, Declan entered the library and found Arthur waiting beside the fireplace.
“You embarrassed me in front of the staff,” Arthur said.
“You threatened a woman who works for me.”
“I protected the organization.”
“From a twenty-one-year-old with a broken arm?”
“From a weakness.”
Declan slowly approached him.
“Explain that word.”
Arthur poured himself a drink.
“You've become predictable. You used to understand that loyalty required difficult choices. Now you're chasing a maid's tears while five hundred guests wait upstairs.”
“Her brother was beaten by our collectors.”
“His brother's mistakes are not our responsibility.”
“The debt was inflated.”
“That's how the business works.”
“Not under my orders.”
Arthur finally looked directly at him.
“You think your father would have cared about a maid?”
Declan's expression changed.
“Don't bring my father into this.”
“Your father understood that power required sacrifice. He didn't let a crying woman distract him from an empire.”
Declan remembered the night his father died.
He had been fifteen, waiting upstairs while gunshots shattered the windows below. Arthur had dragged him through a service passage and hidden him in a car.
For years, Declan had believed Arthur saved his life.
“Did my father know about the collection operation?” he asked.
Arthur's face became unreadable.
“Your father knew everything.”
It was not an answer.
Declan dismissed him and requested the old financial ledgers.
By midnight, a preliminary audit had uncovered something alarming. The debt assigned to Tommy had been transferred through three shell companies before reaching the Knox collection department. The original loan was twenty thousand dollars, but the fees had been manipulated to create an artificial balance exceeding fifty thousand.
More troubling, eighteen thousand dollars in payments from Clary had disappeared from the official records.
Someone was stealing her money while pretending to collect it.
At dawn, Declan found Clary sitting in the kitchen, staring at a cup of coffee she hadn't touched.
“Couldn't sleep?” he asked.
“I'm not used to sleeping somewhere safe.”
The admission silenced him.
He sat across from her.
“Tommy will be brought here under protection today.”
“Can I see him?”
“Of course.”
She looked up sharply.
“You mean that?”
“Yes.”
Her shoulders relaxed for the first time.
Then she reached into her pocket and placed a folded receipt on the table.
“I kept this.”
Declan unfolded it.
It was a payment receipt bearing the signature of a Knox accountant. The amount was twelve hundred dollars, dated three weeks earlier.
At the bottom was a handwritten note:
FINAL PAYMENT BEFORE THE ACCOUNT CLOSES.
“Where did you get this?”
“The man who took the money gave it to me. He said it would settle the debt.”
Declan examined the signature.
It belonged to Martin Hale, the organization's chief accountant.
Martin had worked for Declan's father before Declan was old enough to drive.
“Why didn't you show this to me earlier?”
“Because the collector told me Martin would make Tommy disappear if I complained.”
Declan called his security chief.
“Bring Martin Hale to my office.”
Twenty minutes later, the accountant arrived, sweating through his expensive suit.
Declan placed the receipt on the desk.
“Did you take this money?”
Martin stared at the paper.
“No.”
“That's your signature.”
“Someone forged it.”
“Then explain why the original payment appears in a private account linked to one of your companies.”
Martin's face drained of color.
He looked toward the door, then back at Declan.
“I didn't steal the money.”
“Who did?”
Martin swallowed.
“Arthur ordered me to create the account.”
Declan felt the room tilt.
“What did he tell you?”
Martin leaned forward and whispered.
“He said Tommy's debt was only the beginning. The real plan was to make you believe your father had been betrayed by the wrong man.”
Declan's hand tightened around the receipt.
“Who was the right man?”
Martin looked at him with naked terror.
Then the lights went out.
May you like
A gunshot exploded somewhere in the hallway.
And when the emergency lights came on, Martin Hale was gone.
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