Chapter 3 - The Shadow Behind the Empire
Julian Graves’s eyes bugged out of his head so far the whites were entirely bloodshot.
The heavy golf umbrella slipped from his fingers, tumbling into the dirty gutter water, splashing mud across his five-hundred-dollar Italian leather shoes. The rain immediately plastered his thinning gray hair against his skull.
He looked at Nathaniel.
Then his gaze dropped to me.
And finally, Julian’s eyes flicked to the woman sitting on the milk crate in the rain.
Clara slowly lifted her head. Through the soaked strands of dark hair clinging to her cheeks, she looked up at the tall, silver-haired man standing in the downpour.
For ten agonizing seconds, the only sound on Aldridge Street was the drumming of the rain against the rusty fire escapes and the low, throbbing idle of the armored Cadillac engines.
“Dad?” Clara whispered.
The word was so faint, so fragile, it sounded like a dying breath. She tried to stand up from the crate, but her legs were so weak with exhaustion and fever that her knees buckled instantly.
Nathaniel didn't walk.
The sixty-year-old billionaire broke into a dead sprint across the muddy sidewalk, his expensive overcoat flying behind him, splashing through six inches of dirty gutter water.
He caught Clara before her knees touched the wet concrete.
Nathaniel dropped to the asphalt, pulling his daughter into his arms, wrapping his heavy wool coat around her shivering body, burying his face into her soaked neck, and began to weep with the deep, guttural, earth-shattering sobs of a father who had been pulled back from hell.
“Clara... my baby... my sweet, beautiful girl...” Nathaniel cried, rocking her back and forth in the downpour. “Forgive me... God forgive me, I thought you were in the cemetery... I thought I buried you twelve years ago...”
Clara wrapped her thin, scarred arms around his neck, burying her face into his chest, her tears mingling with the rain. “He told me you hated me, Dad... He told me you knew about the baby and called me a disgrace... He said you were the one who ordered the locks changed...”
Nathaniel’s weeping stopped.
The warmth in his body seemed to turn instantly to liquid nitrogen.
He slowly lifted his head, turning his gaze toward Julian, who was currently backing away down the sidewalk, his shoes slipping in the mud, frantically signaling his private driver in the idling town car.
“Julian,” Nathaniel said.
His voice wasn't loud. It was a low, subterranean vibration that made the two furniture movers drop their boxes in terror and sprint down the alley without looking back.
Julian stopped, his back hitting the brick wall of the tenement. He held up both trembling hands, water dripping from his nose, his arrogant composure completely shattered into pathetic, whimpering pieces.
“Nathaniel... listen to me, brother!” Julian stammered, his voice climbing into a frantic, high-pitched screech. “She was young! She was throwing her future away on that uneducated mechanic! I did it to protect the family name! I set up an annuity for her in Cleveland! She wasn't supposed to come back here!”
“An annuity?” Captain Briggs barked, stepping forward with a ruggedized tactical tablet. “Our forensic accountants just pulled the Apex Property records, Mr. Graves. Julian diverted four hundred and eighty thousand dollars annually from Clara’s testamentary trust fund into his personal offshore accounts in Belize. Meanwhile, he had her registered under an alias as a subsidized tenant in this slum, charging her nine hundred dollars a month while sending his thugs to harass her whenever she fell behind!”
Nathaniel stood up slowly, lifting Clara in his arms with effortless, protective strength, carrying her toward the warmth of the armored Escalade where Dr. Harrison was waiting with heated blankets and oxygen.
He placed Clara gently inside the leather cabin, kissing her forehead.
“Stay with Dr. Harrison, sweetheart,” Nathaniel whispered softly. “Take care of Ruby. Daddy has some business to finish.”
Nathaniel turned around and walked back toward Julian.
Every step of his heavy leather boots through the puddles sounded like a funeral drum.
Julian cowered against the brick wall, weeping hysterically. “Nathaniel, please! We’re blood! We built Graves Energy together! You can’t destroy me for a mistake!”
Nathaniel stopped six inches from his brother’s face. He didn't raise his fists. He didn't yell.
He reached into his jacket, pulled out the sleek black business card I had found in his wallet—the card that read Nathaniel Graves, Chief Executive Officer—and shoved it roughly into Julian’s soaked breast pocket.
“You’re right, Julian,” Nathaniel whispered, his voice dead and cold as winter ice. “We are blood. Which is why I’m not going to kill you in this dirty alley. I’m going to let the United States Department of Justice, the Internal Revenue Service, and the state correctional system pick your bones clean in broad daylight.”
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Nathaniel turned to Captain Briggs.
“Zip-tie his hands. Put him in the third vehicle. We’re going back to Graves Tower.”
