Chapter 2
“Shut up.”
“You knew I found it.”
“Claire, stop.”
Gabriel rose slowly.
“What discrepancy?”
Claire pushed herself onto her knees.
“Four days ago I found duplicate freight charges across eleven vendors. They were small at first. Six thousand. Twelve. Eighteen. Then they started getting bigger.”
Gabriel glanced at one of his men.
His lieutenant, Marcus, quietly removed his phone.
Claire continued.
“I thought it was embezzlement. Internal. I started tracing payment authorizations.”
“Claire.”
Richard’s voice was no longer angry.
It was afraid.
She looked at him.
“You told me the server had been corrupted.”
“It was.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“You deleted the audit logs.”
Evan rushed forward.
“You lying bitch.”
Gabriel moved before anyone else did.
He did not hit Evan.
He simply stepped between him and Claire.
It was somehow worse.
Evan stopped.
Gabriel looked down at him.
“Take another step toward her.”
Nothing more.
No threat.
No raised voice.
Evan backed away.
Claire stared at Gabriel’s back.
The shape of him blocking her brother.
Something about that image seemed incomprehensible to her.
She had never seen a man place himself between her and Evan before.
Not once.
Gabriel turned around.
“What happened after you found the discrepancy?”
Claire’s throat worked.
“My father called me into his office.”
Richard closed his eyes.
“What happened there?”
“I…”
Claire looked toward her father again.
“Tell him,” Gabriel said.
Her hands began shaking.
“They wanted me to sign something.”
“What?”
“A statement saying I had opened investment accounts without permission.”
Evan muttered a curse.
Claire continued.
“I refused.”
“And?”
Nothing.
Gabriel waited.
Claire stared at the floor.
“Claire.”
She wrapped her arms around herself.
“My father…”
The words vanished.
Richard suddenly shouted, “She is mentally unstable!”
Gabriel’s men shifted.
Claire jerked at the sound.
“My daughter has always invented things!”
“Dad.”
“She overeats, she isolates herself, she creates drama because she wants attention—”
“Dad.”
“Her mother indulged her until she became impossible!”
“Stop.”
“She has blamed this family for every failure in her life!”
“Stop!”
Claire screamed it.
The warehouse fell silent.
Even the rain seemed farther away.
Claire rose unsteadily.
She was crying now, but not delicately.
Her face twisted. Her chin shook. Tears ran into the corners of her mouth while years of swallowed humiliation rose all at once.
“You want me to tell him?”
Richard’s expression changed.
“Claire.”
“You want me to tell him what happened in your office?”
“Don’t.”
Gabriel watched father and daughter.
Claire lifted her sweater.
Not high.
Only enough to expose the left side of her waist.
A purple bruise spread beneath her ribs.
Gabriel’s face emptied of expression.
Claire let the fabric fall.
“My father…”
She breathed.
“And my brother did that.”
Six words.
Richard moved first.
“It wasn’t like that.”
Evan spoke over him.
“She fought us!”
Gabriel looked at Claire.
“What did they want you to sign?”
“A confession.”
Her lips trembled.
“They said if I signed it, they could fix everything.”
“And when you refused?”
She laughed once.
It was a terrible sound.
“My brother held me while my father explained how much I owed them.”
Gabriel said nothing.
“For feeding me.”
Tears fell from her chin.
“For letting me live in their house after Mom died. For giving me a job nobody else would give someone who looked like me.”
Her voice broke.
“He said I should be grateful people tolerated seeing me.”
Richard shook his head rapidly.
“I was angry. I said things.”
Claire was no longer looking at him.
“They told me nobody would believe me because everybody knew I was emotional.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
“They said you were coming.”
Now she looked at Gabriel.
“And they said if I didn’t sign, they would tell you I stole everything.”
Evan began, “She’s twisting—”
Claire turned on him with such raw fury that he stopped.
“You told me he would cut me into pieces.”
Even Marcus looked away.
“You laughed.”
Evan’s face hardened.
“You knew the risks.”
“What risks?”
“You worked for the company.”
“I worked for you!”
Claire shouted.
“Sixty hours a week in a basement office because you said clients didn’t want me upstairs!”
Silence.
Her breath came hard.
“I fixed your payroll errors. I negotiated the insurance renewal Dad forgot. I stopped the union contractor from walking out. I covered your gambling withdrawals as executive loans because Dad begged me not to let the bank see them. I worked every Christmas except the year Mom died.”
Richard stared at the concrete.
“And when the money disappeared,” Claire whispered, “you decided I was cheaper than paying it back.”
Gabriel had heard enough.
He took out his phone.
Claire saw it and suddenly panicked.
“No.”
May you like
Gabriel paused.
“Please.”
