The Heiress and Her Bodyguard novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: The Recording

"Leif, I have the ledger," my father's voice said on the recorder.

"I know about LH Resource."

"I know about the pension fund."

A cough answered him, wet and familiar.

"Anders, put the book away."

"I don't think I will."

"Then sign the proxy."

"Your voting shares to me, for as long as you're ill."

"You can't run the company from a hospital bed."

"I'm not in a hospital bed yet."

"You will be."

"And Linnea can't sign for you."

"The board will find her unfit in an afternoon, I promise you."

"She can't see the contracts."

"She reads better than you do."

A pause.

Leif's ring rapped the desk, twice.

"Sign it," he said softly, "or the girl pays for it."

Beside me on the couch, Jonas went rigid.

"You will not touch her," my father said.

"I wouldn't have to touch her."

"An accident, a fall."

"She walks those stairs in the dark every night."

"It happens to blind women all the time."

The recording hissed.

When my father spoke again, I almost didn't know his voice.

It was cold and level, a voice I'd never heard him use.

"Get out of my house, Leif."

"Think about it."

"You've got until Thursday night."

A chair scraped.

A door.

Then my father's breath, ragged, and a click, and nothing.

I sat holding the recorder in both hands.

My whole body was ice.

"Thursday night," I said.

"He gave my father until Thursday night."

"And on Thursday night, a man in a gray coat..."

"Linnea."

"Don't."

My voice shook.

"Don't tell me to be calm."

Jonas took the recorder out of my hands, set it on the table, and pulled me against him, and I let him, with my face in his neck, for the length of three breaths.

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