Snow Falls in Prague; I Won't Wait for a Heartless Man novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: One Thing

Freya's POV

Hana came home on Sunday with the cat in a basket and found a billionaire at her kitchen table.

She put the basket down.

She looked at Brecken, at the bandage on his arm, at the black sedan across the street, and at me.

"Is this him?" she asked in English.

"Yes."

"Good."

She took the wooden spoon off its hook and hit him once across the shoulder, hard.

Brecken did not flinch.

"Thank you," he said.

"Do not thank me. Eat."

She ladled soup into a bowl and slammed it down in front of him.

Then she sat at the end of the table with her arms crossed, to watch him swallow.

Jakub stood against the stove with his arms folded and said nothing.

Brecken laid his things on the oilcloth one by one.

A black recorder.

Three typed pages, signed.

A cashier's check, folded in half.

"The check is for ten million dollars," he said. "It is yours. It does not come with anything. You do not have to see me again."

I pushed it back across the table with one finger.

"I don't want it."

"For the baby."

"The baby will not be raised on what you paid to have her held down."

He stopped breathing for a moment.

"Then what?" he said. "Tell me what I'm allowed to do."

"What is that?" I pointed at the recorder.

"Bethany's surgeon says the crash never touched her fertility. A detective in Chicago is getting her pharmacy's records tomorrow. I want her to say it in front of people, and I need you to stand there when she does."

"You want me to testify."

"I want you beside me. She told me you were confused. She will tell the room the same. You're the only one she can't talk over."

"She'll say it to my face," I said.

"I know. I'm sorry."

I leaned back and looked at him for a long time.

Two years in his bed, and I had never once seen him ask.

"Here is my price," I said. "You say what you did, out loud, in front of the same people. The table, the word, the watch. Not what Bethany did. What you did."

"All right."

"You don't touch me. You don't call me from a hotel at night. You don't come to the pension again unless I tell you."

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