Fated to My Cruel CEO novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Lowell's Table

Ansel lays Colt's gambling markers beside his plate at the Carrow table. In the kitchen Lowell reminds Mona what she owes him for the night of the fire.

The Carrow house sits on three acres in Perrysburg, with white columns my father had added the year he made chairman.

I grew up in it.

I had never walked up the front steps beside a man who looked at the columns.

"You can still say no," I told Ansel in the driveway.

"I wouldn't miss it."

The housekeeper let us in, and my father came out of the dining room with both hands held out.

Lowell Carrow is sixty-two, with silver hair and a soft, warm voice.

He wears a little gold church pin, and he has worn it every day of my life.

He kissed my cheek.

"Sweetheart. You look tired."

"Long morning."

"I heard."

He turned to Ansel and smiled.

"Mr. Rhodes. I'm Lowell. Please, come in, you must be hungry."

Ansel shook his hand.

I watched my father's face, because I had spent twenty years learning to read it.

Nothing moved in it at all.

That was how I knew he was frightened.

Colt was already at the table with a glass of bourbon.

My brother is thirty-three, handsome, flushed, always a little too loud for the room.

He didn't stand up.

"So this is the man who's going to put my father on the street," he said.

"Colt," Lowell said mildly.

"No, I'd like to hear him say it."

"I'm not putting anyone on the street," Ansel said.

He sat down in the chair the housekeeper pulled out for him.

"Your father has a roof. It's the three hundred and forty people with paychecks I'm worried about."

"Aren't you the one firing them?"

"Not yet."

Lowell sat at the head of the table and patted the chair on his right.

"Mona, sweetheart, here."

I looked at the chair.

It was the chair I had sat in at every dinner since I was nine.

I walked around the table and sat down next to Ansel instead.

My father's smile stayed exactly where it was.

The soup came.

Nobody picked up a spoon.

"Rhodes Capital," Lowell said pleasantly. "I admit I hadn't heard of you until the bank called last week. You're very young for it."

"I started early."

"Where did you grow up, Mr. Rhodes?"

"Not far from here."

Ansel set his spoon down very precisely.

"A place called Greer House."

The clink of Colt's glass was the only sound in the room.

My father's face did not change.

"What a tragedy that was," he said. "I sat on the board, you know. I was heartbroken when it burned."

"I read the minutes," Ansel said.

"The minutes?"

"Nine years of them. The donations, the budgets, the auditor's visit that was scheduled for the week of the fire. They're very clear."

"Mr. Rhodes, if you're implying..."

"I'm not implying anything. I'm eating your soup."

He picked up the spoon and took a bite.

Colt laughed, too loudly.

"Is this a joke? Dad, he's lying to you. He's some orphan who burned the place down himself. That's what the papers said."

I felt Ansel go still beside me.

I didn't think.

I put my hand flat on the table and said, "Colt. Shut up."

Everyone looked at me.

I had never said it to him in my life.

Ansel reached into his jacket and took out a folded stack of papers, and put them next to Colt's plate.

"What's this?"

"Eleven markers," Ansel said. "Four casinos in Detroit and Toledo, and a private game in Cleveland. One point two million dollars."

The color drained from Colt's face.

"They were sold to me last month. They're mine now."

"That's not..."

"It is exactly that."

Colt looked at our father.

Lowell was looking at the markers.

"Be quiet, Colt," he said, very softly.

Dinner ended in four minutes.

Ansel wiped his mouth with the napkin and stood.

"Thank you for the soup. Mona, I'll be in the car."

He went out without looking at either of them.

I started to follow, and my father's hand closed around my wrist.

"Help me carry the plates, sweetheart."

It was not a request.

I followed him into the kitchen and he closed the swinging door.

He let go of my wrist.

He stood at the sink with his back to me.

When he turned, all the warmth had gone out of his face.

"Where did you find him?" he said.

"He found me."

"He knows who you are."

"He knows I was at Greer House. He's known for about nine hours."

"And what did you tell him about that night?"

I held his eyes.

"Nothing yet."

"Good."

He came a step closer and lowered his voice.

"Mona. I took you off that road in the middle of the night with soot on your face."

His voice stayed gentle.

"I gave you a name, a school, a house. I fed you for twenty years."

"I know what you did."

"Then you know what you owe me for that night. You've paid it every day by keeping your mouth shut."

My heart was banging against my ribs.

"I'm not going to forget it," I said.

"Make sure that boy doesn't learn it from anyone but me."

He stepped back, smoothed his tie, and picked up a plate.

"Do what you promised me," he said, "or he'll hear it from me."

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