Chapter 3 - THE DEBT MY FATHER NEVER LEFT ME
The sound of glass breaking is different when you're inside the thing being broken.
Sharper.
Closer.
Personal.
I fell across the leather seat as Damian climbed in behind me. Marcus slammed his door and the sedan launched forward so hard my shoulder hit the opposite side.
Another shot cracked somewhere behind us.
"Down," Damian ordered.
"I am down."
"Lower."
"There's a floor somewhere below this?"
He put one hand behind my head and forced me beneath the window line.
The gesture should have frightened me.
Instead, strangely, it steadied me.
Marcus took a hard right.
Tires screamed.
The SUV followed.
"Two inside," Marcus said.
"Confirmed?" Damian asked.
"Driver and shooter."
"Don't engage in traffic."
"We've got company coming."
I looked between them.
"You say things like this often?"
Neither answered.
That was an answer.
We shot through three blocks before two additional sedans appeared behind the SUV.
They boxed it in.
The chase ended almost silently.
No dramatic crash.
No explosion.
Just the SUV slowing, attempting to escape down a narrow street, then stopping when another black vehicle blocked the exit.
Marcus kept driving.
"You aren't calling the police?" I asked.
"No," Damian said.
"Of course not."
"You disapprove."
"I'm currently being abducted by a man who apparently owns a private motorcade. I haven't organized my feelings yet."
"You're not being abducted."
"Where are we going?"
"A secure location."
"Did I agree?"
"No."
"Then we disagree about the definition."
Damian looked at Marcus.
Marcus said, "She's got a point."
"Drive."
Twenty minutes later, Manhattan disappeared behind us.
We entered a private underground garage beneath a building in Brooklyn Heights.
The elevator required a fingerprint.
Naturally.
When the doors opened, I expected something theatrical.
Marble.
Gold.
A tiger, perhaps.
Instead, Damian's apartment was quiet and almost severe.
Dark wood. Pale stone. Bookshelves. Floor-to-ceiling windows facing the river.
No photographs.
No obvious luxury except for the fact that the view probably cost more per month than I earned in three years.
Marcus checked the rooms before allowing us farther inside.
"I'm leaving two downstairs," he said. "Four around the building."
"Find out who was in the SUV," Damian told him.
"I'm already on it."
"And Marcus."
Marcus paused.
"No hospitals."
I looked at Damian.
Marcus didn't.
"Understood."
He left.
I remained by the elevator.
"Explain that."
"No hospitals means no one gets hurt badly enough to require one."
"That's an oddly specific ethical boundary."
"It's a practical one."
"Somehow worse."
Damian took off his suit jacket.
There was a tear near the shoulder from the broken car window.
"You can leave when it's safe."
"Define safe."
"When I know who has your address."
"They already have it."
"Which is why you're not going there tonight."
"My clothes are there."
"Replaceable."
"My father's watch is there."
His expression changed slightly.
"Not replaceable."
"No."
"I'll have it retrieved."
"You'll have nobody enter my apartment."
"Then tomorrow I'll take you."
"I'm supposed to work at five."
"You're not working tomorrow."
I laughed once.
"That might be easy for someone who owns five suits that probably cost more than my car."
"I don't know what my suits cost."
"That is exactly the kind of answer I expected."
He motioned toward the kitchen.
"You said you hadn't eaten."
"I'm not hungry anymore."
"Eat anyway."
"I'm starting to understand why people are afraid of you."
"And yet you're still arguing."
"I'm tired, not stupid."
For a second, something almost human passed through his eyes.
Then his phone rang.
He checked the screen.
"Cross."
A voice spoke too quietly for me to hear.
Damian's face went completely blank.
"Where?"
Silence.
"Don't touch anything."
He ended the call.
"What?"
He looked at me.
"Someone entered your apartment twenty minutes ago."
My stomach dropped.
"What did they take?"
"Nothing."
"Then why break in?"
"They didn't."
"What?"
"The lock wasn't damaged."
I thought of the spare key.
There were only two copies.
One in my purse.
One—
"No."
Damian saw it immediately.
"Who?"
"My brother."
His name came out like a bruise.
Daniel Marlowe.
Thirty-two years old.
Older than me by four years.
Charming when he wanted something, apologetic when he'd already taken it.
We hadn't spoken in eight months.
Not since he showed up at Bellweather asking for three thousand dollars and called me selfish when I refused.
"He has a key?"
"Had one. I never asked for it back."
Damian picked up his phone again.
"Marcus."
I crossed the room.
"No."
He looked at me.
"Don't hurt my brother."
"I haven't said anything."
"You didn't have to."
"You think he forged the debt?"
"I think Daniel has made terrible choices."
"That's not what I asked."
I turned toward the windows.
The river was black beyond the glass.
"When our father died, the company was already struggling. Daniel took it over."
"You didn't?"
"I was twenty-four and finishing school. I wanted nothing to do with restoration work."
"What happened?"
"It failed."
"How?"
"He said contracts dried up."
"Did you check?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because my father had just died, my mother had been gone since I was sixteen, and I was working sixty hours a week trying not to lose the apartment."
Damian was quiet.
"What apartment?"
"The one I live in now."
"Your father owned it?"
"Yes."
"And left it to you."
"Yes."
"Not Daniel."
A bitter laugh escaped me.
"There it is."
"What?"
"The part everyone always gets stuck on."
"Why did your father leave it to you?"
"Because Daniel received the company."
Damian nodded once.
"Company to Daniel. Property to you."
"Exactly."
"What was the property worth then?"
"Maybe seven hundred thousand."
"And now?"
"A little over one point two."
Damian's expression hardened.
"Your fake debt is secured against what?"
I turned slowly.
"What?"
He pulled out the photograph again.
I had been so focused on my father's company name that I hadn't read the collateral section.
Damian enlarged it.
Apartment Unit 6C.
My apartment.
My home.
"No."
The word came out barely audible.
"If this assignment were enforceable," Damian said, "the creditor could begin proceedings against the property."
"But it's forged."
"Forged documents can still create damage before they're disproven."
I stared at the false signature.
Suddenly I remembered something.
Three months earlier, Daniel had texted asking for a copy of my deed because he said our father's old accountant needed it for "estate cleanup."
I had refused.
Then two weeks later, Daniel visited.
I had showered while he sat in my living room.
My filing cabinet had been unlocked.
"Oh my God."
Damian stepped closer.
"What?"
"He had access."
"To the deed?"
"To everything."
I covered my mouth.
My brother.
My own brother.
Damian's phone rang again.
Marcus.
Damian answered on speaker.
"We found the SUV."
"And?"
"Rental. Fake IDs. One guy ran. We have the other."
"Who?"
A pause.
"Elena isn't going to like this."
I closed my eyes.
"Say it."
Marcus exhaled.
"His phone has twelve calls over the last week to Daniel Marlowe."
The room seemed to tilt.
Damian caught my elbow.
I pulled away.
"No."
"Elena—"
"No."
My phone vibrated inside my coat.
Daniel.
The name glowed on my screen.
I stared at it.
Damian stared at it too.
"Answer," he said.
I did.
"Daniel?"
For three seconds, there was nothing.
Then my brother whispered, "Elena, don't say my name."
My heart slammed.
"Where are you?"
"You need to listen to me."
"Did you send someone to my apartment?"
"No."
"Did you forge my signature?"
His breathing became ragged.
"Daniel."
"I was trying to fix it."
"Fix what?"
"I didn't know who they were."
"Who?"
"Elena, I swear to God, I thought it was just money."
My knees weakened.
"What did you do?"
He started crying.
Daniel never cried.
Not when Dad died.
Not when the company collapsed.
Not even when he lost his marriage.
"I gave them your name."
My entire body went cold.
"Why?"
"Because they said if I didn't, they would kill me."
A sound came through his end of the call.
A door.
Then Daniel gasped.
"Elena—"
The line erupted with a crash.
A man's voice said something I couldn't understand.
Then my brother screamed once.
The call went dead.
Damian was already reaching for his jacket.
"Marcus," he said into his phone, voice suddenly lethal. "Trace it."
Marcus answered almost immediately.
"Already did."
"Location?"
A pause.
Then Marcus gave an address.
Damian stopped moving.
I had never seen fear on his face before.
But I saw it then.
"What's there?" I whispered.
May you like
Damian looked at me.
"The building where my father was murdered."
