Chapter 8
Martin Hayes became the next problem.
He was not Gregory’s brother.
Cousin.
Former soldier.
The man who moved Theo most often.
My guards found him before midnight.
He expected violence.
I gave him a chair.
That made him more nervous.
“Why did you try opening the bracelet?”
He looked at Gregory.
Wrong person to seek permission from.
I noticed.
“Martin.”
He exhaled.
“Lucille said there was something inside.”
“What did she want?”
“To see if the old protection mark still existed.”
“Why?”
Silence.
I waited.
“She planned to approach Venturi.”
“When?”
“Last year.”
There.
Before Theo’s injury.
Before poverty became visible enough for him to walk into my clinic.
“What stopped her?”
Martin looked toward Lucille.
“She wanted more.”
Of course.
“What?”
“South Wharf.”
I almost laughed.
My son’s childhood priced against territory.
Lucille wanted control over one Venturi shipping corridor in exchange for revealing Theo alive.
“Did she approach anyone?”
“One captain.”
Name?
Samuel Rossi.
Old.
Respected.
He never told me.
That hurt.
I summoned him.
Samuel arrived with his head already lowered.
“You knew.”
“Not everything.”
“When?”
“Ten months ago.”
“What did she show you?”
“A photograph.”
Theo.
Older.
Alive.
“What did you do?”
Samuel swallowed.
“I thought it was fabricated.”
“And the token?”
“She didn’t have it open.”
Convenient.
“Did you tell me?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because if it was false, I’d reopen the wound.”
Reasonable.
Cowardly.
Both.
“And if it was true?”
He looked ashamed.
“I was afraid of what you would do.”
There.
Again.
My reputation had become another wall around Theo.
People who might have brought me uncertainty chose silence because they feared my reaction.
I could blame them.
I did.
But I also had to understand the environment I built.
May you like
Fear protected my command.
It also protected my enemies from being reported.
