Chapter 4 - Erasing the Debts
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While Emma slept through the weekend, heavily sedated to manage the pain of her fractured ribs, I dismantled the financial cage that had been suffocating her.
I sat in my private study, a single glass of bourbon resting on my mahogany desk. Spread out before me was the dossier my private investigator had compiled on Emma Carter in less than twenty-four hours.
It was a bleak, heartbreaking read.
Her mother, Sarah, was in the late stages of breast cancer, receiving subpar treatment at an underfunded county hospital. Her brother, Leo, was confined to a wheelchair after a hit-and-run accident, drowning in debt from unapproved physical therapy sessions. Emma’s bank accounts were drained to the last penny every Friday.
She had been carrying a mountain on her shoulders, and she had done it with a polite, quiet smile while serving my guests.
I picked up my secure phone and dialed my lead corporate attorney.
"David," I said when he answered. "I have a project for you. I need you to contact St. Jude’s Oncology wing. Transfer a patient named Sarah Carter to their private VIP suite immediately. Tell them all expenses are covered by the Castellano Foundation."
"Consider it done, Dominic," David replied smoothly.
"I also need you to buy up the medical debt for a nineteen-year-old named Leo Carter. Pay it off in full. Then, hire the best private physical therapist in the state and put them on a permanent retainer."
There was a brief pause on the line. "Dominic, this will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Are you sure?"
"I don't care what it costs," I stated coldly. "Make it happen before sunrise."
I hung up the phone, staring at the photograph of Emma attached to the dossier. It was a picture from her employee file—she was smiling, her bright eyes filled with a resilient, quiet determination.
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I had spent my life surrounded by people who wanted my money, my power, or my life. Emma had just wanted to clean my floors so her brother could learn to walk again.
Nobody was ever going to hurt her again. I was going to build an impenetrable fortress around her, whether she asked for it or not.
