Chapter 3 - The Debt Beneath the Debt
Dominic's office occupied the top floor of a building overlooking Boston Harbor.
I arrived at 9:57.
His receptionist looked at the clock.
“Mr. DeLuca appreciates punctuality.”
“I gathered.”
At exactly ten, the doors opened.
Dominic stood behind a broad walnut desk.
“No driver today?”
“I have my own car.”
“Good.”
That seemed to please him.
He motioned toward a chair but remained standing until I sat.
There was no family photograph on his desk. No trophies. No decorative evidence that he needed strangers to understand his importance.
Only paperwork.
He slid one document toward me.
“Your father's company isn't failing because business declined.”
I read the numbers twice.
Payments had been redirected through three shell vendors. Insurance invoices had been inflated. Cargo contracts had been deliberately underpriced.
Someone had been bleeding Hawthorne Maritime for eighteen months.
“Who?”
“I don't know yet.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I don't care what you believe. I care what you can prove.”
I hated how much I liked that sentence.
Dominic walked around the desk.
“My people found irregularities after purchasing the debt. Someone wanted Hawthorne Maritime weak enough to acquire cheaply.”
“Julian?”
His expression didn't change.
“My son is many things. Patient isn't one of them. This required patience.”
“That's not exactly a defense.”
“No.”
I looked through the documents.
One vendor name appeared repeatedly.
Bellweather Consulting.
I recognized it.
“Rosalie worked there.”
Dominic's eyes sharpened.
“When?”
“Two summers ago.”
“Doing what?”
“She called it event strategy. I never understood what that meant.”
Dominic pressed a button.
The broad-shouldered driver from the first night entered.
“Marco, Bellweather Consulting. Everything.”
Marco nodded once and disappeared.
I stared after him.
“Is he really your driver?”
“No.”
I waited.
Dominic didn't elaborate.
“Do you always answer half a question?”
“Only when half is sufficient.”
I stood.
“Then we're finished.”
Something almost amused passed through his eyes.
“You dislike being managed.”
“I've had a difficult week for men making decisions on my behalf.”
That erased the amusement.
“Fair.”
One word.
No defense.
No demand.
It stopped me.
Dominic walked to the window.
“Julian's mother died when he was twelve.”
I said nothing.
“He grew up believing grief entitled him to indulgence. I allowed that belief longer than I should have.”
“Why are you telling me?”
“Because eventually you will wonder whether I intend to excuse him.”
He turned.
“I don't.”
There was something in his expression I couldn't identify.
Regret, perhaps.
Not for Julian's affair.
For something older.
My phone rang.
My mother.
I answered.
She was crying.
“Aurelia, your father collapsed.”
Everything after that happened quickly.
Massachusetts General.
Emergency department.
Chest pain.
Tests.
A doctor explaining that my father's heart was stable but his blood pressure had spiked dangerously.
I sat beside my mother in a waiting area while she twisted a tissue into pieces.
Rosalie arrived forty minutes later.
Julian came with her.
Of course he did.
I stood when I saw them.
Rosalie stopped.
“Aurelia.”
“Don't.”
Her eyes filled.
“I know you're angry.”
“You don't know anything about me.”
“I never meant for this to happen.”
“You had four months to stop it happening.”
Julian stepped in.
“This isn't helping.”
I looked at him.
“My father is in a hospital after discovering his company may disappear. You don't get to moderate my tone.”
“Aurelia,” Rosalie whispered, “I love him.”
There it was.
The phrase people used when they wanted love to function as legal immunity.
“Then love him,” I said. “But stop asking me to make you feel innocent.”
Rosalie's face crumpled.
I turned away.
At the end of the corridor stood Dominic.
I had not called him.
He had come anyway.
Julian saw him.
“What are you doing here?”
Dominic looked at me, not his son.
“Your father is one of my debtors. His condition affects negotiations.”
It was such an obviously cold excuse that I almost smiled.
“You came because of a balance sheet?”
“Yes.”
“Liar.”
His eyes held mine.
“Occasionally.”
For the first time in two days, my chest loosened.
Then Marco appeared and whispered something into Dominic's ear.
Dominic's expression changed.
Only slightly.
But I had begun learning how much could happen inside slightly.
“What?” I asked.
He hesitated.
“Tell me.”
“Bellweather Consulting doesn't exist in any meaningful operational sense.”
“Meaning?”
“It was created eighteen months ago. Its registered manager is a nominee.”
“And the owner?”
“Hidden behind two companies.”
“Can you trace them?”
“We did.”
Julian had moved closer.
Dominic looked at him.
Then at Rosalie.
My sister's face had gone white.
I noticed.
So did Dominic.
“Who owns it?” I asked.
Dominic's answer was quiet.
“Your mother.”
Nobody moved.
I laughed once.
“That isn't possible.”
My mother was sitting six feet away.
She had heard him.
The shredded tissue fell from her hand.
“Helena?” I said.
She stared at the floor.
“Mom?”
Tears filled her eyes.
“I was trying to save you.”
The words made no sense.
“From what?”
She looked at Dominic.
Not me.
Dominic went utterly still.
My mother whispered, “From him.”
A silence opened in the corridor.
Dominic's face became unreadable.
I turned slowly toward him.
“What is she talking about?”
Helena stood.
“Thirty-one years ago, before I married your father, Dominic DeLuca and I knew each other.”
My heartbeat stumbled.
Dominic said nothing.
My mother continued.
“And there are things about your family that I should have told you a long time ago.”
Then the hospital room door opened.
My father stood there despite the nurse trying to stop him.
His face was gray.
“Helena,” he said.
My mother looked at him.
Charles Hawthorne closed his eyes.
“Don't tell her here.”
May you like
I stared at all three of them.
And suddenly Julian betraying me felt like the smallest secret in the building.
