Chương 9
“It sounds tired.”
“He’s nineteen. He should hate me because I borrow his shirts or because I eat his cereal. Not because I make him show me his pills.”
Victor sat across from her.
“What would you do if he were healthy?” he asked.
She gave a small shrug. “Sleep.”
“After that.”
“I used to take classes.”
“For what?”
“Nursing.”
He glanced toward the hospital room.
“I dropped out when he got worse,” she said. “Don’t say I should go back.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Everyone says that. They say it like tuition is a bus I missed and another one comes every ten minutes.”
Victor rubbed his thumb over the expensive watch on his wrist. Lucia had once wanted to study architecture. He had forgotten that until then. Not the fact itself, but the way she used to draw apartment buildings on grocery receipts, adding balconies to places that had none.
The memory arrived so suddenly he looked down at his hands.
Anna noticed. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“That wasn’t nothing.”
“My sister drew buildings.”
Anna waited.
Victor did not add more.
She accepted the limit and leaned her head against the wall.
For several minutes they sat without speaking.
That evening, forensic accountants began imaging servers at Victor’s main office under Nina’s supervision. Dominic’s administrators refused access until presented with written corporate resolutions. One called in sick. Another claimed she had forgotten every password used for nine years. The process took hours.
The first reliable pattern emerged after midnight.
Lakeshore had enrolled employees in a health plan that existed on paper but never became active because premium payments were reversed after payroll deductions cleared. The deducted money moved through Vantage Municipal Solutions, then into consulting accounts that paid cash expenses across Victor’s organization.
Some of the cash had funded legitimate repairs, legal retainers, and payroll during slow months.
Some had paid police informants, unregistered security workers, and men whose job descriptions did not exist.
Victor had benefited.
Nina showed him the flowchart in a hospital conference room.
He stared at the lines. “Dominic stole from me too.”
“That is not the useful lesson.”
“He overbilled three properties.”
“He also financed your operations with money taken from low-wage employees.”
“I didn’t authorize that.”
“You authorized Dominic to solve cash problems without asking how.”
Victor looked at the screen.
Nina lowered her voice. “Ignorance can be genuine and still be culpable.”
He leaned back. “You’ve been waiting years to say that.”
“I’ve said it every month. You usually leave the room.”
Anna stood in the doorway. She had been discharged but refused to leave while Thomas remained admitted. Her hair was tied back with an elastic from a nurse, and she wore gray sweatpants and a hospital sweatshirt Victor had asked Leo to buy from the gift shop.
“How many employees?” she asked.
Nina closed the laptop halfway.
Anna’s face hardened. “That means more than seventeen.”
“Forty-three across several properties,” Nina said.
“How much?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Guess.”
“I don’t guess with other people’s money.”
Victor turned the laptop toward Anna. “At least three hundred thousand in deductions and unpaid wages.”
She stared at the flowchart. “For how long?”
“Three years.”
“I’ve only worked there six months.”
“Yes.”
“Who else?”
“We’re contacting them through independent counsel.”
Anna read the company names. “Russo Hospitality. Russo Property Group. Halsted Parking.”
Victor watched her reach the same conclusion.
“All yours,” she said.
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t know.”
“No.”
“Do you expect me to believe that?”
Victor considered lying, not about the records but about the boundaries of his knowledge. He could have said Dominic concealed everything, that the organization was too large, that no one brought him complaints. Each statement contained enough truth to sound convincing.
Instead he said, “I knew Dominic moved money. I didn’t ask whose it was.”
Anna looked at him for a long time.
“That’s worse than not knowing,” she said.
“Yes.”
She left the room.
Nina reopened the laptop. “That may be the healthiest conversation anyone has ever had with you.”
Victor ignored her.
The next morning, Thomas was cleared to leave the hospital with a revised dialysis schedule, medication assistance paperwork, and follow-up appointments. The zero balance on his old account did not erase the future. He still needed ongoing treatment. He still faced transplant evaluation, transportation problems, and a body that could betray plans without notice.
Anna had nowhere safe to take him.
Their apartment address appeared in Lakeshore personnel records. Victor offered one of his properties.
Anna refused.
Nina offered a hotel booked through her firm.
Anna asked whether Victor would pay.
“Yes,” Nina said.
“Then no.”
Thomas closed his eyes. “Please stop making poverty into a personality.”
Anna looked at him.
He shifted in the wheelchair. “I want a bed. A real bed. I want to sleep without somebody checking my blood pressure. I don’t care whose credit card it’s on.”
“It comes with strings.”
“Everything comes with strings. Dialysis comes with tubes.”
“That’s not funny.”
“It was a little funny.”
Victor said, “The hotel is in Nina’s name. No guards inside. Hospital security can coordinate transport.”
Anna crossed her arms. “And outside?”
“Two men.”
“No.”
“One.”
“No.”
Victor looked at Thomas. “Your sister negotiates badly.”
Thomas nodded. “She thinks repeating no makes it stronger.”
“It does,” Anna said.
Nina intervened. “One licensed private security officer in the lobby, hired through my firm, with no connection to Mr. Russo’s organization.”
Anna considered it.
Thomas whispered, “Bed.”
“Fine,” she said.
The hotel room overlooked the river and had two queen beds separated by a nightstand. Anna immediately checked the locks, the adjoining door, the bathroom window, and the space beneath both beds.
Thomas watched from a chair.
“You know kidnappers don’t usually wait under hotel beds,” he said.
“You’ve been almost kidnapped once. Don’t become an expert.”
“Almost kidnapped is not kidnapped.”
“That’s not the comforting distinction you think it is.”
Victor remained near the door. Anna turned and found him there.
May you like
“You can go.”
“I know.”
