“Eighteen thousand,” I whispered. “My grandmother left it to me. For the wedding. Or a house.”
“And how much is in it now?”
I didn’t know.
My phone was dead in my purse. I hadn’t checked the account in weeks because Arthur told me not to worry, that everything was paid.
Julian slid his own phone across the table. The screen was unlocked, showing a banking app I didn’t recognize, with a name at the top I did recognize.
Arthur Hale.
A transaction history. Withdrawals. Six thousand to a sports book. Four thousand to something called LUXE AUTO. Two thousand to Lydia M. Three weeks ago. Then again. Then again.
My fingers went cold.
“He’s been draining it for months,” I said. My voice was barely air. “That’s not… that’s my grandmother’s…”
“He also owes my associate fifty thousand dollars,” Julian said. His tone never changed, but the air around us did. The two men at the nearest table stood and moved to the bar without being told. “He put your apartment up as collateral. Your name is on the lease, Nora. Not his. He told my man you would cover it.”
The bottle in front of me blurred.
I thought I was going to be sick. I thought I was going to scream. Instead I just sat there, perfectly still, while the last three years rearranged themselves into a shape I didn’t recognize.
Lydia hadn’t just wandered into my apartment wearing my camisole. Arthur hadn’t just slipped.
They had been taking from me in plain sight and calling it love.
Julian’s hand moved again, this time just enough that his fingertips brushed the edge of my wrist. Not holding. Just there. Warm and steady.
“If you want revenge, I can have him on his knees by midnight,” he said. “If you want your money, I can have it back by morning. But you need to decide what you actually want to do when you walk out of here, because once I make a call, I don’t unmake it.”
I looked at his hand. At the scar. At the whiskey he hadn’t wanted.
“Why are you offering to help me?” I asked. “You don’t know me.”
“Don’t I?” He tilted his head. The light caught the sharp line of his jaw, the faint shadow under his eyes that made him look younger than his suit. “You came in here with bleeding fingers from carrying boxes you refused to drop because you didn’t want to make a mess for other people. You told a man who cheated on you to keep the apartment. You didn’t throw anything. You didn’t scream. You carried three hundred wedding favors into a bar and asked a stranger to drink with you so you wouldn’t have to drink alone.”
He paused.
“My mother did that once,” he said. “Carried the mess so no one else had to see it.”
The wire around my chest snapped.
Tears came so fast I couldn’t breathe around them. I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes and shook, silently, shoulders caving, the whole booth trembling with it. I hadn’t cried in the apartment. I hadn’t cried in the taxi. Now I couldn’t stop.
Julian didn’t tell me to calm down. He didn’t move closer. He just sat there and let me fall apart in his booth in his bar while his men kept everyone else away.
When I could finally inhale, he pushed a clean white handkerchief across the table. It smelled like cedar.
“I want the truth,” I said, my voice shredded. “I want everyone to know the truth. Not just that he cheated. That he stole. That she helped him steal from me.”
Julian nodded once, as if I’d finally answered the right question.
He picked up his phone.
He didn’t dial. He texted. Two words.
Bring it.
