Claimed Hard by My Best Friend novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: The Reading

Dane looked at the paper and did not pick it up.

"What is this?" he said.

"Read it," Frank said.

"I'll read it when I..."

"Read it, or I will."

Dane didn't move. Frank's good hand closed on the arm of his wheelchair.

The lawyer stepped forward to lift the page, and Frank shook his head.

"Mine," he said.

The lawyer set the page in front of him instead.

Frank bent over it with his white head low, and he read it aloud himself, slowly, one clear word at a time.

"Three point two million dollars," he read. "Taken from the dealers' tip pool over two years. The pension of every man and woman who has worked my floor."

The room made a low sound.

"Taken by my son Dane. Called a loan. Never entered in a book."

"That's a lie," Dane said.

"The books are here."

Malachi opened the leather folder on his knee and laid it on the cloth without a word.

I saw Dane's face go slack when he saw the four different handwritings.

"The Gilt," Frank read on. "Sold in secret by a man who did not own it, to a buyer in Las Vegas. My lawyer called that buyer at noon. He has withdrawn."

"He wouldn't."

"He did." Frank looked up. "A sale falls apart when you show a man the clause."

Dane stared at him.

"Item three," Frank said. "The Flanagan paper. I froze it for four years. My son broke my word. He sent men into a stairwell and took a free man out of it, and put him in a chair, with a threat."

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