Chapter 2 - The Shell Account in George TownThe silence in the study was absolute, broken only by the muffled thunder of rain lashing against the reinforced glass.
Damon stood motionless over his desk, his eyes fixed on the legal petition bearing his daughter’s name.
The thirty-million-dollar debt to Detroit was not his debt. It belonged to the Sterling family’s failing freight empire—an enormous financial hole created when Camilla’s father, Julian Sterling, lost five container ships to an off-market smuggling seizure in Halifax four months ago.
Camilla had not agreed to marry Damon out of devotion or status. She had agreed to marry him to position herself as the legal guardian of an innocent seven-year-old heiress whose trust fund held eighty million dollars in untouched government bonds.
Damon looked up. His slate-gray eyes, usually as cold and impenetrable as polished river stone, held a terrifying, measured stillness.
"Frank."
“Boss,” the intercom crackled back immediately.
"Where is Arthur Pendelton right now?"
“He left the estate grounds forty minutes ago in a town car. Our tracking unit intercepted his vehicle on the expressway near Skokie. We have him in the secure processing cellar beneath the carriage house.”
Damon didn't flinch. "Hold him. Strip his phones, his briefcase, and his bar credentials. I will be down in ten minutes."
He closed the channel with a single press of his thumb.
Then he walked around the walnut desk, stopping three inches in front of me.
He looked down at the white gauze taped over my temple. His large, scarred hand reached out, hovering in the air before resting gently against the side of my neck, his thumb catching a stray tear rolling down my cheek.
His skin was warm, smelling of cedarwood, rich tobacco, and clean rain.
"Who cares for you when you go home, Clara?" he asked softly.
"No one, sir," I whispered, my heart hammering against my ribs. "My mother died three years ago. I live alone in a walk-up on 18th Street in Pilsen."
"And your rent?"
"It's nine hundred dollars. I'm three weeks behind."
Damon reached into his breast pocket, pulled out his personal gold clip, and dropped five banded stacks of hundred-dollar bills onto the desk blotter—fifty thousand dollars in uncirculated currency.
"Mr. Vance... no," I gasped, backing away half a step. "I cannot take that. I'm just a banquet server."
"You took an iron blow to the temple to protect my child's life, Clara," Damon murmured, his baritone vibrating with an intensity that took my breath away. "In this house, nobody who bleeds for my family walks back into the cold. Your rent is paid for the next ten years, and your bank account will never see forty-one dollars again."
May you like
He turned toward the heavy mahogany doors, his face setting into the immovable granite of an executioner.
"Now," Damon said quietly. "Let us go ask Mr. Pendelton what kind of ink he uses to sign a child into an orphanage."
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