Chapter 2 - Ten Thousand Dollars
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The money landed on Clare Bennett’s treatment table while her hands were still wet.
Ten thousand dollars.
Banded hundreds, thick enough to pay for Oliver’s medication, stop the eviction notice, and silence the collection calls that came before she left for work.
The man who brought it locked the clinic door behind him. Clare recognized him instantly. He was the man from the alley.
“My employer needs pain management,” the man said.
“We’re closed,” Clare replied, her heart hammering against her ribs.
“Not to me.”
Clare reached for a towel. Through the small window above the sink, rain turned the alley light into a trembling yellow smear. She was thirty-two, a licensed physical therapist, and tired enough that some evenings she forgot whether she had eaten. Her eight-year-old son was at home with the neighbor who watched him, sleeping beside a filtration machine whose monthly payment arrived like another punishment.
“I need to know who I’m treating,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady.
“No questions about him. No questions about the location.”
“Then find someone else.”
The man studied her. His name was Gabriel Mendes. He wore a dark suit, the very same expensive watch she had returned, and the expression of someone accustomed to leaving a room with what he came for.
“We know about Oliver.”
Clare stopped drying her hands. The blood drained from her face.
Gabriel’s voice remained level. “Do the work. Keep what you see private.”
“And if I don’t?” Clare whispered, terror gripping her throat.
May you like
“You won’t want to find out.”
She looked at the money. It was salvation and damnation wrapped in paper bands. Then she hated herself for looking. But she had no choice. For Oliver, she would walk into hell itself.
