Chapter 5 - THE SAPPHIRE CUFFLINK
The sapphire cufflink gleamed under the desk lamp.
Victor Thorne.
Nathan’s stomach violently rebelled. He clamped a hand over his mouth, swallowing down the bile.
Two years ago, before the embezzlement began, Nathan had made a catastrophic investment in a commercial high-rise in Dallas. To cover the margin call and hide the failure from Olivia, he had borrowed two million dollars from Victor Thorne—a private equity lender who operated out of a high-end club in Houston. Thorne’s money didn't come with standard interest rates; it came with broken bones and seized assets.
Nathan had been using the embezzled funds to slowly pay Thorne back.
But if Thorne’s cufflink was in Nathan’s hidden drawer... Thorne had been inside the house.
The front door doorbell chimed.
Nathan flinched. He stood perfectly still, his eyes locked on the office door.
The chime rang again. Then, the heavy sound of a fist pounding against the wood.
Nathan crept out of the office and peered through the peephole.
It wasn't Victor Thorne.
It was a woman holding a small boy by the hand.
Nathan ripped the door open.
Standing on his porch was his older sister, Elena. Beside her was Leo.
Nathan’s eight-year-old son.
Leo looked up at his father, his large brown eyes—so much like Olivia’s—wide with confusion. He was clutching a small backpack.
"Elena? What are you doing here?" Nathan asked, pulling them inside and quickly locking the door behind them.
Elena looked exhausted. "Olivia dropped him off at my house last night. She said you and she needed time to figure things out, and she didn't want him in the middle of it. But Nathan... the news."
Elena pointed toward the living room television.
Nathan grabbed the remote and turned it on. The local news channel showed live helicopter footage of federal agents carrying boxes out of the Reed Commercial Real Estate building downtown.
The headline crawled across the bottom of the screen: CEO NATHAN REED UNDER INVESTIGATION FOR MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR FRAUD.
"Nathan, what did you do?" Elena whispered, pulling Leo closer to her.
Nathan looked at his son. He had barely spoken to the boy in months. He had been too busy with Madison, too busy with his secret accounts, too busy convincing himself that his family was holding him back.
Now, Leo was looking at him not with admiration, but with fear.
"I made a mistake," Nathan said hollowly.
He looked back at Elena. "You have to take him back. You can't be here. The police might come. Or worse."
"I can't take him back, Nathan," Elena said, her voice shaking. "When I saw the news, I panicked. I called Olivia. She told me to bring him here."
Nathan frowned. "Why would she do that? Why would she send him into the middle of this?"
"She didn't," a new voice echoed from the hallway.
Nathan spun around.
Standing near the kitchen entrance, wearing a sharp black trench coat, was Victor Thorne.
Elena screamed, pulling Leo behind her.
Thorne smiled, casually tossing a gold coin into the air and catching it. "Hello, Nathan. Nice house. Pity you won't be living here much longer."
Nathan stepped in front of his sister and son. "How did you get in here, Victor?"
"Back door was unlocked," Thorne said simply. He looked past Nathan to the little boy. "Cute kid. Looks like his mother."
"Leave him out of this," Nathan growled.
"I'd love to," Thorne said, his smile vanishing. "But you owe me two million dollars, Nathan. And my inside sources tell me the feds just froze all your known accounts. Which means you can't pay me."
Thorne took a step closer, the menace rolling off him in waves.
"But I had a very interesting phone call this morning," Thorne continued. "From your wife."
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Nathan felt the blood drain from his head. "Olivia called you?"
"She did. She told me you had a private safe in the floorboards of this house. She said there was enough collateral inside it to cover your debt." Thorne tilted his head. "So, we're going to open that safe, Nathan. And if it's empty, I'm taking the boy as insurance until you find my money."
