Chapter 7 - The Second Ledger
Margaret Sloan didn't flinch.
“That's a lie.”
Richard smiled.
“Is it?”
Adrian said nothing.
Richard reached slowly inside his jacket.
Security immediately moved.
“Easy.”
He removed a folded sheet of paper.
“Bank transfers.”
Margaret looked at Adrian.
“Don't.”
Adrian took the paper.
Three payments.
Each from an account connected to Vanessa.
Each apparently sent to Margaret.
Total: $90,000.
Nia watched Margaret's face.
Not fear.
Anger.
“That account isn't mine.”
Richard laughed.
“It has your name.”
“It has my name attached to it.”
“Convenient distinction.”
Police arrived minutes later and arrested Richard on financial charges already supported by the evidence from Vanessa's locker.
As officers led him away, he looked at Adrian.
“You always were too trusting.”
Adrian answered quietly.
“You taught me.”
For the first time, Richard's smile disappeared.
The alleged Margaret account was examined.
It was fraudulent.
Someone had used stolen identity information to open it.
Security footage from the bank showed Richard's assistant arranging one of the transactions.
Margaret was cleared within hours.
But Richard had accomplished something anyway.
He had made Adrian doubt someone loyal to him.
That night, Nia found Adrian alone in the ballroom.
Chicago glowed beyond the windows.
“You look terrible,” she said.
“Thank you.”
“You're welcome.”
He sat at one of the empty tables.
She took the chair beside him.
For several minutes, neither spoke.
Finally Adrian said, “Richard raised me after my father died.”
Nia looked at him.
“I was seventeen. Angry at everyone. My mother had already died. Richard taught me how to negotiate, how to read contracts, how to build this company.”
He looked around the ballroom.
“I thought everything good I became came partly from him.”
“Maybe some of it did.”
Adrian frowned.
Nia continued.
“Bad people can teach you useful things. Good people can hurt you. Humans are inconvenient that way.”
He smiled faintly.
“You have a remarkably strange method of comforting people.”
“I wasn't aware I was comforting you.”
Their eyes met.
The moment lasted slightly too long.
Nia looked away first.
Adrian asked, “What are you going to do?”
“About what?”
“Your job.”
She laughed.
“I don't technically have one.”
“You do if you want it.”
“Housekeeping?”
“Anything you're qualified for.”
There it was.
The thing Nia had feared.
Gratitude becoming charity.
“No.”
Adrian looked surprised.
“I don't want a job because I saved you.”
“That's not why—”
“It'll always be why people think I got it.”
She stood.
“I need work. Desperately. But I need to know I earned it.”
Adrian studied her.
Then nodded.
“Fair.”
She turned to leave.
“Nia.”
She looked back.
“Apply.”
“For what?”
“Employee advocacy.”
She almost laughed.
“We don't have that department.”
“We will.”
“Adrian.”
“I'm creating an independent employee standards office. Someone who reports outside hotel management and investigates wage complaints, scheduling abuse, harassment, retaliation.”
Nia stared at him.
“You invented a department because I yelled at you twice?”
“Three times.”
“That's worse.”
“You'd have to interview. Margaret will choose the hiring panel. I won't participate.”
That stopped her.
“You'd really stay out of it?”
“Yes.”
“No billionaire interference?”
“I'll make a heroic effort.”
Nia smiled.
“I'll apply.”
The following week transformed the Lakeshore Grand.
Every employee affected by illegal deductions received reimbursement plus additional compensation.
Adrian announced an outside audit across all nineteen properties.
Anonymous reporting channels were created.
Vanessa, recovering in police custody, agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in exchange for consideration at sentencing.
Richard remained jailed pending trial.
The story reached newspapers.
But the part employees remembered happened without cameras.
Adrian came downstairs one Friday morning and stood in the laundry room.
He apologized.
Not as a billionaire.
Not as an owner.
As the man whose company had failed to protect them.
Evelyn cried.
Luis didn't.
He simply shook Adrian's hand.
Nia watched from the doorway.
Two days later, she interviewed for the new employee advocacy office.
Margaret asked the hardest question.
“What would you do if the complaint were against Adrian?”
Nia didn't hesitate.
“Investigate him.”
Margaret smiled.
“You're hired.”
Three months passed.
Spring arrived in Chicago.
Nia became very good at her job.
And Adrian became very bad at pretending he didn't invent reasons to visit her office.
One afternoon he appeared carrying coffee.
“You're stalking me professionally.”
“I own the building.”
“That isn't the defense you think it is.”
He put the coffee down.
“Dinner.”
Nia froze.
“What?”
“Dinner with me.”
“As my boss?”
“No.”
“That creates approximately eight thousand ethical problems.”
“I've counted six.”
“Then your math is terrible.”
Adrian smiled.
“No pressure. No consequences if you say no.”
Nia looked at him.
She wanted to say yes.
That was the problem.
Before she could answer, Margaret burst into the office.
Her face was pale.
“Adrian.”
He turned.
“Richard made bail.”
Adrian stared at her.
Margaret continued.
“And nobody knows where he is.”
On Nia's desk, her phone suddenly buzzed.
Unknown number.
One photograph appeared.
It showed Nia leaving her apartment that morning.
May you like
Underneath were five words.
HE CAN'T PROTECT YOU FOREVER.
