Chapter 6
The days blurred into a grueling rhythm. Clara slept in a sparse, windowless room adjacent to the underground clinic. She only saw the sun when Victor escorted her to the roof for ten minutes of mandatory fresh air. The rest of her time was spent patching up the violent consequences of Julian Thorne’s empire. Bullet wounds, stab wounds, chemical burns—she fixed them all, meticulously logging her hours in a black notebook, calculating her freedom.
She quickly learned the hierarchy. Julian was the undisputed king. Victor was his executioner. And Samson, the massive mastiff, was the shadow that guarded the throne. To Clara's surprise, the dog took a liking to her. Whenever she was in the clinic charting supplies, Samson would lumber in, dropping his heavy head onto her lap, demanding the kind of physical affection he was never offered by the men upstairs.
One evening, Clara was upstairs in the penthouse kitchen, pouring herself a cup of black coffee, when Julian’s secure satellite phone rang on the marble island.
Julian answered it on speaker. Victor was standing beside him.
"Thorne," Julian said, his voice dropping into the lethal register Clara had heard the night they met.
"Julian," a raspy, tobacco-stained voice crackled through the speaker. Arlo Finch. "You stole my property in Blackwood. That girl belonged to me."
"You bought a fraudulent ledger, Arlo," Julian replied smoothly. "And you sent amateurs to collect it. They're currently buried under a new highway overpass."
Finch laughed, a wet, ugly sound. "You think you're so smart, Julian. But you're bleeding from the inside out. Elias knew it. That's why he burned."
Clara froze, the coffee cup halfway to her mouth.
"Elias was a thief," Julian lied effortlessly. "He took my money. The fire was an accident."
"We both know it wasn't an accident," Finch sneered. "Elias found the leak. He hid the proof. Whoever burned him down thought they destroyed it, but they didn't. I want the girl, Julian. Give her to me, and I'll give you the name of the rat in your inner circle."
Julian’s eyes flicked over to Clara, who was standing frozen in the kitchen, her face pale.
May you like
"The girl is mine," Julian said softly. He ended the call.
The silence in the penthouse was deafening. Clara set the mug down. Her hands were shaking so hard the ceramic rattled against the granite counter. "He hid proof? Elias didn't steal from you. He was trying to warn you."
