Chapter 4 - Nicholas Names His Price
Nicholas Varela requested the meeting through Daniel.
That alone told Claire he was worried.
At the diner, he had enjoyed making her wait.
Now he offered three available times and asked whether she preferred video.
Daniel chose a conference room in his own office.
Claire chose to attend.
Lily argued for exactly forty seconds before Claire said, “I need to hear what he knew.”
“Then I’m coming.”
“You’ll be in the waiting room.”
“I’ll be an extremely judgmental waiting-room presence.”
Nicholas arrived with an attorney and none of his usual swagger.
He looked at Claire’s bare ring finger before he sat.
She noticed.
“Was that the plan?” she asked.
Nicholas glanced at Daniel.
“What?”
“To make sure I left him.”
His attorney murmured something.
Nicholas leaned back.
“I didn’t send the pictures.”
“But you knew someone was taking them.”
His silence answered.
Claire felt anger sharpen into something useful.
“You watched me beg for my husband’s life while helping someone destroy it.”
“I told you there was a traitor.”
“You told me just enough to make me come back.”
Daniel placed a copy of the uncashed cashier’s check on the table.
“You represented that you had information about a threat. Mrs. Moretti offered payment. You declined it. Why?”
Nicholas looked at the check.
“Because two million wasn’t what Raymond wanted.”
The room went still.
“What did he want?” Claire asked.
“You out of the way.”
Daniel’s pen stopped.
Nicholas’s attorney spoke before he could continue.
“My client is here to provide preliminary information. Any formal cooperation will need to be discussed through the proper channels.”
“Understood,” Daniel said. “And nobody in this room can promise him protection from the consequences of his own conduct.”
Nicholas rubbed his thumb along the edge of the table.
“Raymond approached people in my organization months ago. Routes. Storage locations. Financial information. Enough to weaken Adrian without making the source obvious.”
“And you accepted it,” Claire said.
“Yes.”
She appreciated the honesty only because it saved time.
“He said Adrian was becoming reckless,” Nicholas continued. “That family leadership needed to change.”
“By killing him?”
“He didn’t use that word.”
“Men like you rarely need to.”
Nicholas looked away.
Then he reached into his jacket slowly, after his attorney nodded, and placed a phone on the table.
“There are messages.”
Daniel did not touch it.
“Your counsel can arrange preservation and transfer.”
Claire leaned forward.
“Why help now?”
Nicholas laughed without humor.
“Because Raymond sent me an invoice yesterday.”
“For what?”
“Consulting work. Backdated. With enough detail to make it look as if I paid him to steal from the foundation.”
Daniel’s expression hardened.
“He’s preparing to make you the organizer.”
“He’s preparing to make everyone disposable.”
Claire looked toward the window.
Forty stories above the city, Adrian had called her a traitor.
Somewhere below them, Raymond had been arranging the order in which people would fall.
Nicholas spoke again.
“There’s something else.”
Claire turned back.
“The car in London wasn’t meant to take you to Belgravia.”
Daniel raised a hand.
“Tell your attorney exactly how you know that. We need direct knowledge distinguished from speculation.”
Nicholas nodded impatiently.
“I received a message from Raymond’s intermediary. They wanted confirmation of your arrival time.”
“Why ask you?” Claire said.
“Because they wanted it to look like retaliation from us.”
Her skin went cold.
Lily had been right outside the room.
Her sister, who complained about parking and bought cereal in bulk and still called every Sunday.
Claire suddenly imagined Lily receiving a phone call from overseas.
She stood.
“I need a minute.”
Daniel followed her into the hallway.
“You don’t have to stay.”
Claire pressed one hand against the wall.
“I know.”
She waited until she could breathe evenly.
Then she returned.
Nicholas watched her with an expression that might have been shame.
She did not give him a word for it.
“You’re going to tell the truth,” she said. “All of it. Not the version that makes you useful. The version that makes you responsible.”
His attorney began to speak.
Claire lifted a hand.
“I’m not offering a deal. I’m telling him what I hope he chooses.”
That evening, Adrian received a summary through counsel.
He read it standing beside the nursery that did not exist, in the home Claire had once imagined filling with children.
They had delayed trying for a baby because he said next year would be calmer.
There was always going to be a next year.
He called Gabriel.
“I need a complete account of every payment Raymond authorized through the foundation.”
“Already underway.”
“And every order I approved without reading.”
Gabriel paused.
“That may be a long list.”
Adrian looked into the dark window.
May you like
“I know.”
This time, he did not ask anyone to make it shorter.
