Chapter 2 - The Secret Behind the Badge and the Bill
Ethan Ward did not knock.
When you have pulled a man out of a burning car trunk at age nineteen and helped him bury three million dollars in cash beneath a concrete pier in Jersey, knocking on doors becomes a formality reserved for strangers.
Ethan pushed the heavy oak door open, a thick manila folder tucked beneath his arm and a digital tablet glowing in his palm.
He stopped dead in his tracks.
Ethan’s eyes flicked from Dominic’s face—which still held the faint, lingering shadow of that strange, impossible expression—to the sleeping girl curled up on the leather sofa.
Ethan blinked.
Once.
Twice.
As if trying to clear a glitch from his field of vision.
Dominic’s face instantly hardened, slamming shut like an iron vault door.
The smile vanished so fast it was as if it had never existed.
“Close the door, Ethan,” Dominic said, his voice dropping back into its usual gravelly, arctic register.
Ethan slowly stepped inside, letting the oak door click shut behind him.
He didn't look at Emma again, but his peripheral radar was clearly locked onto her like a heat-seeking missile.
“I see our new hire has unconventional methods of dusting,” Ethan murmured, keeping his voice low.
“She fell asleep,” Dominic said flatly, rolling his chair back toward the desk. “She’s been awake for twenty-one hours. Leave her.”
Ethan raised one graying eyebrow.
“Leave her? In your private study? The same study where you keep the offshore accounts and the ledger for the Port Authority?”
“She’s a twenty-seven-year-old girl with a bum knee and an old cleaning rag, Ethan. Not an assassin from the Syndicate.”
“Professional assassins don’t usually smell like lemon bleach and cheap cafeteria coffee, boss. But people with desperate problems do.”
Ethan tossed the manila folder onto the mahogany desk.
It landed with a dull, heavy slap right beside Dominic’s keyboard.
Dominic didn't touch it.
“What’s this?”
“Her background check,” Ethan said, pulling a stylus from his pocket and tapping the screen of his tablet. “Or at least, the parts the standard agency didn't bother to dig up because they only care if someone has a felony record for grand theft.”
Dominic’s eyes drifted to the folder.
“Talk.”
“Emma Harper. Born and raised in Harbor City. Graduated top twenty percent of her high school class before her father walked out and left her mother with a mortgage the size of a shipping container. She had a scholarship to NYU for accounting.”
Ethan paused, scrolling down the digital file.
“Had one. She dropped out sophomore year when her father’s trucking company went belly-up and left three hundred thousand in back taxes.”
Dominic’s fingers tapped once against his armrest.
“And the mother?”
“Linda Harper. Suffered a massive ischemic stroke three years ago. Followed by vascular dementia. She’s currently living in a private care facility sixty miles north called Willow Glen Memory Care.”
Ethan looked up, his voice dropping a notch.
“It costs eight thousand four hundred dollars a month, Dominic.”
The room went entirely silent.
Even the rain outside seemed to quiet down, replaced by the low, steady hum of the study’s climate control system.
“Eight thousand,” Dominic repeated softly.
“Per month,” Ethan confirmed. “Medicare covers about twelve percent. The rest comes out of pocket. Emma has worked three jobs simultaneously for the last thirty-six months. Diner breakfast shift from five to noon. Office cleaning from one to six. And whatever temp agency night shifts she can pick up to pay the overage.”
Ethan leaned against the edge of the bookshelf, folding his arms across his chest.
“Three weeks ago, Willow Glen sent her a final notice. Pay twenty-two thousand in arrears by the first of the month, or Linda gets transferred to a state-run facility off Route 9.”
Dominic knew Route 9.
Everyone in Harbor City knew Route 9.
It was where state-funded institutions went to die—overcrowded, understaffed warehouses where elderly patients sat in vinyl chairs under fluorescent tubes that hummed twenty-four hours a day.
“That’s why she took the night shift here,” Dominic said, his gaze returning to the sleeping girl on the sofa. “Thirty-two dollars an hour.”
“That’s why,” Ethan agreed. “She doesn't care about your reputation. She doesn't care that you paralyzed a guy with a pool cue in ninety-nine or that the FBI has a file on you thicker than a Manhattan phone book. She cares about twenty-two thousand dollars.”
Dominic reached out, his thick fingers opening the manila folder.
Inside were bank statements, medical bills stamped PAST DUE, and a photograph of an older woman with kind, tired eyes sitting in a wheelchair holding a knitted blanket.
The resemblance around the eyes was unmistakable.
Dominic stared at the photograph for a long, silent minute.
Then he closed the folder, picked up his secure satellite phone from the desktop cradle, and pressed three buttons on the speed dial.
Ethan watched him, a slow, knowing crease forming at the corner of the older man’s mouth.
“Who are you calling at three-thirty in the morning?” Ethan asked, though he already knew the answer.
“The bank,” Dominic said without looking up.
“Which bank?”
“Mine.”
The phone clicked on the second ring.
A nervous, breathless voice answered immediately: “Kane-san? Sir? Is everything alright?”
“Listen to me very carefully, Arthur,” Dominic said, his voice dropping into that low, flat vibration that made grown men in Swiss boardrooms sweat through their silk shirts. “I want an escrow transfer executed immediately.”
“Y-yes, sir. To which account?”
“Willow Glen Memory Care. Account number is on file through my private foundation.” Dominic paused, his eyes fixed on Emma’s chest rising and falling in sleep. “Pay the full balance. Current arrears, plus ten years in advance, fully endowed, tax-exempt trust.”
On the other end of the line, Arthur stuttered. “T-ten years, Mr. Kane? That’s… that’s nearly a million dollars.”
“Did I stutter, Arthur?”
“No, sir! Right away, sir! The transfer will clear before the markets open in Tokyo.”
Dominic cut the connection without saying goodbye.
He laid the phone back on the dock.
Ethan let out a long, slow breath through his nose, shaking his head.
“A million dollars for a maid you’ve known for six hours,” Ethan said, his voice laced with dry disbelief. “You’re getting soft in your old age, boss.”
“I’m not getting soft,” Dominic said coldly, wheeling himself half an inch closer to the desk. “I’m investing in quiet. And right now, quiet is the most expensive thing in this house.”
“And when she wakes up and finds out?”
Dominic looked back at the sofa.
May you like
Emma shifted again, her face relaxing into something resembling peace for the first time all night.
“She’ll be furious,” Dominic said, and for the second time that night, the ghost of a smile touched the corner of his mouth. “I can’t wait to see it.”
