Chapter 15: Gruber Holdings

"Claire?" Dean said. "What are you doing in here?"

Brandy's father came in behind them, a heavy man in a quilted vest with a lender's folder under his arm.

He stopped when he saw me.

"Sit down on my left, Dean," I said.

"Where's the owner? I was told Gruber Holdings would be here."

"I'm here," I said.

My father's attorney stood up and buttoned his cardigan.

"Mr. Albrecht, allow me to introduce the sole beneficiary of Gruber Holdings, which holds sixty-two percent of your company."

Dean laughed.

It was a short, bright sound, and then it stopped.

He looked at the attorney, and the man with silver hair, and the empty chair on my right.

Then he looked at the brass key at my throat.

"No," he said.

"Sit down, Dean."

He sat down in the chair on my left.

Brandy stayed standing, with her hand on the back of his chair.

"Claire, honey," Dean said. He was already smiling again, carefully. "This is incredible. Don't you see? We're a team."

"You told me I had nothing."

"I was angry."

"You said it in the corridor, with your daughter fifty feet away."

"That was a mistake. I made a thousand of them."

"Nineteen of them are on the county's list," I said.

I opened Zelda's envelope and took out the first page.

"Sir, you've lent this company two million dollars because you believe in Dean."

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