How to Tame a Silver Fox novel · Chapter 6 of 32

Chapter 6: The Debt

I put my ear against the door.

"You haven't signed the second page," my father said. "It's been three days."

"I'm reading it."

"There's nothing to read. It's a form."

"There's a clause about the old structure's contents," Arlen said. "Somebody's mother painted in that building."

"Somebody's mother is dead."

"Albert."

"Don't use that voice with me."

I heard the floorboard in the corridor creak under my father's weight.

He was a big man, red in the neck, and when he lowered his voice it was worse than when he shouted.

"I gave you a seat at my table," he said. "Eight months ago, when nobody in this state would return your call."

"I know what you gave me."

"Thirty percent of a company you couldn't have built in ten years."

"I know."

"Then you know what you owe me."

There was a pause so long I could hear the clock in the hall.

"I know exactly what I owe you," Arlen said, very quietly. "That's why I haven't left."

The footsteps went down the stairs.

I stood against the door with my pulse in my teeth.

What did he owe my father?

A man with thirty percent of a company does not owe anybody.

I dressed quickly, in my own room, in jeans and a white shirt and the key on its chain.

I went downstairs on the balls of my feet.

My father's study was empty, and the desk was an ocean of paper.

The second page of the permit sat squarely in the center under a glass paperweight, with a yellow flag marking the line for Arlen's signature.

I did not stop to think.

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