Arranged to the Don, Freed from the Lie novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: Edmund

Helena's POV

The black sedan from Providence sat across the gate with its engine running and its back door shut.

Forty Crowninshields had followed us out of the Great Hall, and they stood on the gravel in a loose, silent half circle.

Santino walked beside me with six men behind us.

I held the three folded notes against my chest.

The man in the camel coat got out of the front seat and smiled.

"Mrs. Carraro. We keep meeting at gates."

"Where is my great-uncle?"

He opened the back door.

Edmund sat inside in his cardigan, with his cane across his knees and his glasses crooked.

He did not look at me.

"Your husband repaid my two million at six this morning," the man said. "Very civilized. But I was promised a wife, and I was paid in paper. That isn't what I came for."

"Then what did you come for?"

"Edmund's May letter had a second page." He drew it from his coat. "I didn't show it to you last night. If the Council failed to deliver the bride, the Council pledges its three tugboats."

I took the page.

The signature was Edmund's.

"The tugs are the only thing the Council ever owned outright," the man said. "He bought them with the trust's money. Give me my boats, and I'll give you your family back."

"Helena," Santino said, very low.

"I know."

I turned the page over.

The dock loan that sat on those three tugs was one of the papers in my hands.

Six million dollars, and a lien, and my name on the endorsement.

"If I sign the lien off," I said, "the tugs are clean and yours. They carry no debt, no Crowninshield Maritime flag, and no obligation to anybody in this family."

"That sounds like a woman who knows what I want."

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