Chapter 5
Garrick Vance froze mid-step. His polished patent-leather shoes remained glued to the marble floor.
His fair skin was now slick with cold sweat, shimmering under the high gala chandeliers. He swallowed hard, his throat clicking audibly in the quiet room.
“Leopold,” Vance stammered, raising both hands in a conciliatory gesture, the empty champagne flute dangling precariously from his index finger. “Let’s… let’s not blow this out of proportion. We are at a public charity function. The Governor’s wife is expected in forty minutes. We are gentlemen. If there is a business misunderstanding regarding the terminal leases—”
“Come here,” Leopold repeated.
The words carried no heat, but they vibrated with a dark, primal authority that made Vance’s knees weaken.
Vance took three stumbling steps forward, his eyes darting toward the other board members standing near the ice sculpture. None of them looked back at him. Every single man and woman who had shared cocktails with him five minutes earlier stepped back, creating an empty, five-yard perimeter around him as if he carried an airborne contagion.
Vance stopped six feet from Leopold, clutching his lapels with white-knuckled hands. “Leo, listen to me. The family trust… we were concerned. You’ve been distracted since Margaret passed away. The Chicago syndicate was threatening to freeze the rail lines if the maritime leases weren't renegotiated. We did what we thought was necessary to protect the capital!”
Leopold walked over to him, his overcoat trailing behind him like a shroud. He stopped until his chest was inches from Vance’s face. The height difference was only two inches, but Leopold seemed to blot out the high glass roof above them.
“You starved my three-year-old daughter,” Leopold said.
“I didn't touch her!” Vance shrieked, his polished facade collapsing into raw, high-pitched terror. “That was Verity! Verity had custody for the visitation weekend! She said the girl was being uncooperative! I never laid a hand on her, Leo, I swear on my mother’s grave!”
“You asked how long she had been without food,” Leopold replied, holding up the rose-gold phone so the screen was two inches from Vance’s widening pupils. “You read the time logs. You calculated her caloric deprivation like an operating expense on a cargo manifest.”
Vance’s breath came in ragged, wheezing gasps. “It was legal maneuvering, Leo! Custody challenges require demonstrable instability! Dr. Calloway said—”
“Where is Calloway?” Leopold asked.
The name dropped like a guillotine blade.
Near the champagne pyramid, a short, balding man of fifty in a double-breasted tuxedo suddenly attempted to duck behind a decorative indoor orange tree.
Dr. Arthur Calloway. Chief of Pediatric Medicine at Ashbury Memorial Hospital, personal physician to the family for fifteen years.
Damon Pike did not wait for an order.
The bodyguard crossed the floor in four massive strides, reached behind the ornamental citrus tree, and dragged Calloway out by the silk collar of his jacket. Calloway kicked his patent-leather loafers, his spectacles flying off his nose and shattering against the marble, but Damon hoisted him off his feet with one arm and hauled him across the floor like a sack of damp laundry, dumping him onto the flagstones at Leopold’s feet.
Calloway scrambled backward on his hands and knees, clutching his bruised collar, his face mottled with purple patches of panic. “Leopold! Please! I was coerced! Verity had records from the hospital board—she threatened to revoke my clinical directorship!”
Cleo, still standing near the dessert table holding her crushed bear, watched the doctor with wide, solemn eyes.
May you like
She pointed a small, lace-trimmed finger toward Calloway.
“He gave Auntie the white envelope,” Cleo said, her voice clear and piercing. “The one with the shiny blue bird on it. He told her Daddy wouldn't have any police friends after Monday.”
