Chương 5
Victor looked at him.
Dominic spread one hand. “Lakeshore moves money. That’s all. The staff get paid.”
“They paid for insurance.”
“They get wages above market.”
“They paid for insurance.”
Dominic’s patience broke. “Then reimburse them.”
“Were you going to?”
“If anyone complained.”
“Anna complained.”
“To a call center.”
“Did the call center call you?”
Dominic looked toward the muted television.
That was enough.
Victor stood. “How much?”
“This is ridiculous.”
“How much did you take?”
“From whom?”
Victor crossed the room so quickly Dominic struck the wall before he understood he had been moved. Victor’s forearm pressed beneath his jaw. The old violence came easily. It had always been easiest when anger could pretend to be certainty.
Dominic did not struggle. His face reddened, but he smiled.
“There you are,” he rasped.
Victor’s grip tightened.
“You sit beside a sick girl for one night and suddenly you’re a priest?”
Victor drove him harder against the wall.
Dominic’s hand moved toward his jacket. Leo opened the door and drew his weapon in one motion.
“Hands,” Leo said.
Dominic lifted both palms.
The television chef continued chopping onions.
Victor released him.
Dominic adjusted his collar and looked at Leo’s gun. “You’re pointing that at the wrong man.”
Leo did not lower it.
Victor said, “You’re done with payroll, vendors, accounts, and household staff.”
“You can’t remove me from half the operation over a maid.”
“I just did.”
Dominic laughed once, without amusement. “You think those companies are clean because you don’t read the papers? You signed the authorizations.”
“I signed vendor approvals.”
“You signed money transfers.”
“For services.”
“Services I provided.”
“You stole from people working in my house.”
“I funded the house.”
Victor felt the old arithmetic returning: loyalty measured against betrayal, usefulness against insult, fear against consequence. In the past, the calculation had always ended with someone bleeding.
Dominic saw it. “Go ahead.”
Victor’s hands closed.
Leo said, “Boss.”
The single word carried more caution than obedience.
Victor looked at Dominic’s throat, at the red mark his forearm had left.
Then he stepped back.
“Leave the hospital.”
Dominic straightened his tie. “This isn’t finished.”
“No,” Victor said. “It isn’t.”
Anna’s fever broke late that morning. She was moved to a room two floors below Thomas, and the nurses eventually allowed the siblings to see each other in a small consultation room.
Thomas entered in a wheelchair because his blood pressure had dropped after dialysis. Anna stood too quickly when she saw him and had to catch the table.
“You look terrible,” he said.
“So do you.”
“I always look terrible. You’re copying me.”
She bent to hug him. Thomas’s face disappeared against her shoulder. Neither of them spoke for a while.
Victor watched from the hallway. He had told himself he was waiting to speak with the financial counselor. That person had left twenty minutes earlier.
Thomas noticed him first.
“That him?”
Anna stepped back. “Don’t stare.”
“He stared at you while you were sleeping.”
“He was checking whether I was alive.”
“With a gun?”
Victor entered before the conversation improved.
Thomas looked him over. “You really don’t look like the pictures.”
Victor glanced at Anna. “Your family has strong opinions about photography.”
Thomas smiled, then winced when the movement pulled at the dressing beneath his shirt.
Anna immediately touched his arm. “What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Tommy.”
“The catheter site’s sore.”
“Did you tell the nurse?”
“They know.”
“What did they say?”
“That catheter sites get sore when people put catheters in them.”
Anna turned toward the hallway as if prepared to find a doctor by force.
Thomas caught her wrist. “Sit down.”
She obeyed, though resentment remained in every line of her body.
Victor placed the paid receipt on the table.
Anna looked at it but did not reach for it.
Thomas did. “Zero balance.”
“It may take time to update everywhere,” Victor said. “The financial counselor is reviewing assistance programs and coverage.”
Thomas read the receipt again. “Why?”
Victor looked at Anna.
“She asked you already,” Thomas said.
“I gave her an answer.”
“She says it wasn’t a good one.”
Anna gave her brother a warning look.
Thomas shrugged. “She says a lot when she’s feverish.”
Victor pulled out a chair. “My sister’s name was Lucia.”
Anna’s expression changed. She had not expected him to answer in front of Thomas.
“She was seventeen when her kidneys began to fail,” Victor said. “Our father had insurance until the factory closed. After that, every envelope had a number in a window. Fifty-two thousand was the amount we could never get ahead of.”
Thomas lowered the receipt.
Victor kept his eyes on the table. “Lucia got infections. Missed treatments. Took less medication than prescribed because she was making it last. I didn’t know that until later.”
“How old were you?” Anna asked.
“Nineteen.”
The same age as Thomas.
Victor did not say it. No one needed to.
“I found a way to get the money,” he continued. “It wasn’t a good way. It took three days. When I came back, she’d been dead for six hours.”
The room seemed smaller after that.
Thomas folded the receipt carefully along the edge. “The money wouldn’t necessarily have saved her.”
“No.”
“You know that?”
“Yes.”
“But you still think it would have.”
Victor looked at him.
Thomas’s fingers rested over the printed zero. “I do that too. When something goes wrong, I pick one thing Anna could’ve done differently. Even when it’s not true.”
Anna’s mouth tightened. “You don’t have to talk about me like I’m not here.”
“You do it to yourself.”
“I said stop.”
Thomas looked away.
The friction between them felt ordinary and old. Victor found it more intimate than their embrace.
Anna took the receipt from her brother and placed it on the table. “Thank you.”
Victor inclined his head.
“That doesn’t mean I trust you.”
“I know.”
“And I want copies of everything you signed.”
“Regarding the payment?”
May you like
“Regarding Lakeshore.”
Victor’s gaze sharpened. “How do you know about that?”
