She’s got money somewhere and we’re going to fucking find it, says the email from my brother, Damir. You know all the money people in this city. Look at their faces. Who’s helping the little bitch? Once we know who they are we can sort them out.
The mourners dwindle to nothing and the priest goes into the church. I didn’t see anyone we need to “sort out”. I go to close and delete the video but see that Miss Alders hasn’t followed the priest inside. She takes a long, pensive look around the churchyard, and I notice her fingers are fiddling nervously with her bracelet. My mother used to do the same thing shortly before my father was due to arrive home.
“Are you all right, Mama?”
“What? Oh, I’m fine, Misha. Go and play, and keep out of your father’s way.”
I sit back in my chair. It’s a gray, still day in London and I glance at the Ravnikar Enterprises skyscraper a few blocks away where Damir works. I’m part of the company but I like my space, so I’ve rented my own office on the thirty-ninth floor of a different building. The less I have to do with Damir—with anyone—the happier I am.
In the footage, Miss Alders firms her lips, ready to go into the church. Then she freezes, her eyes going wide like a startled fawn’s. A man steps into the shot and she presses her back against the church in fear.
I lean forward to get a better look at the screen. It’s Damir, his broad back and tall figure almost obliterating my view of this small young woman. What the hell is he doing there? Her gaze flickers past him, as if she’s yearning to escape.
Intent on the footage, I don’t notice that my PA is peering over my shoulder.
“Hey, look. It’s the dead girl.”
I slam my thumb on the spacebar to pause the video and glare up at Bethany. “What is it?”
She tosses a file onto my desk and shrugs. “Here’s the report thing you need for that meeting or whatever.”
My eyes sweep disapprovingly over her unprofessional attire. Today it’s an off-the-shoulder blouse showing a great deal of creamy cleavage and a tight lace pencil skirt. Her wild black curls are swept to one side and tumble down her arm.
“Thank you. That will be all,” I say tightly, keen to get back to the footage. Damir is frozen in the act of looming over Miss Alders and my every nerve is on edge.
But Bethany folds her arms and nods at the screen. “I know Ciara.”
“Oh?”
“We took classes together until I quit last semester.” Bethany gives me a fake sycophantic smile. “In order to devote more time to you, sir.”
“You’d be better off getting an education,” I mutter, checking the messages on my phone in an effort to quell the desire to shout at Bethany to get out. What’s Damir playing at? Why is he so hung up on this girl? Why do I want to reach into the screen and pull him away from her?
Bethany casts her eyes to the heavens. “Education? Please. I’m going to date a series of rich men, find the most corrupt one to marry, and then when he’s sent to prison for fifteen to twenty-five years I’ll console myself by spending all his money.” She shrugs a bare shoulder. “The ideal life.”
People aren’t sent to prison around here; we’re far too wealthy for that. But if she wants to marry a corrupt man then she certainly has her pick at Ravnikar Enterprises, assuming she can turn a blind eye to the things that go on around here. It gets easier. The trick is to think of the money.
I put down my phone and look at the screen. At Miss Alders’ terrified eyes. A memory comes to me, of seeing my father standing over my mother in the same manner. Damir looks so much like him these days.
Anger surges through me. Why did he make me look at her face? He knows I don’t like to get personally involved. Numbers. Databases. Spreadsheets. The only people I like are theoretical ones on the other side of a business portfolio.
The words slip out of my mouth before I can stop myself. “What’s she like?” I suppose I’m hoping she’s a nasty, greedy little thing like her father so I don’t feel guilty when I wash my hands of her in thirty seconds’ time.
Bethany considers this. “Smart. People like her. I think she was top in both the classes we had together.”
Of course she’s smart and likeable and gets good grades. Of course she is.
I tap my fingers on my desk, trying to think. “Three years ago, I introduced Miss Alders’ father to Damir and persuaded him that taking on our Diamond Property Developments scheme was an excellent opportunity for him. He then stole money from us, and when he realized he’d been caught he fled with his wife rather than face Damir. Their plane went down in the Ukraine two weeks ago.”
I remember how Damir had laughed when we got the news, like it was the best joke he’d heard in his whole life. Then the laughter had stopped, and cold steel returned to his eyes. “They shouldn’t have left their daughter behind. She’ll wish she’d died with her parents by the time I’m finished with her.”
Damir has managed to recover nearly all of the seventeen million pounds that Mr. Alders embezzled from us via our lawyers, all but four hundred and fifty thousand of it. Maybe Mr. Alders used it for bribes. Maybe he had a debt to pay off. Maybe he liked high-class hookers. Who knows. But I’ve been through the accounts and the money’s gone. I want to leave it at that but Damir isn’t satisfied.
In the frozen video footage Miss Alders’ eyes are sparkling with fear as she looks up at Damir.
“Misha, I told you to go to bed. It’s all right, your father and I were just talking.”
I point at the screen. “If it wasn’t for me Miss Alders’ parents would both be alive, and Damir wouldn’t be out for her blood.”
Bethany puts a hand over her heart and stares wide-eyed at my chest. “Oh, sir, is that—what’s that on you?”
I glance down at my suit, wondering if I spilled salad dressing on myself at lunch.
She peers closer, frowning intently. “Is that—a conscience?”
I level a dry look at her. If it wasn’t near-impossible to find a PA who can put up with my brother and his dangerous associates, who knows how to keep her mouth shut about the things she overhears, and can keep a meeting diary in order I’d fire Bethany.
“Thank you, you can go now.”
She ignores me. “I don’t know why her dead parents should matter to you. You didn’t make Ciara’s dumbass father double-cross Mr. Ravnikar.”
True. But for some reason that doesn’t make me feel any better.
I recall the last line of Damir’s email. I’ll get my half a mill from her if I have to wring it out of her fucking corpse.
I know my brother better than anyone else in the world. He means everything he says. Miss Alders will have to find some way to raise half a million pounds, money that won’t make any difference to our business, but will probably break her. I suspect that’s the point: it’s not the money Damir wants. It’s revenge on the last living member of the Alders family.
Our servers are secure. There’s no way to trace that this video was sent to me. I can delete it now and I’ll never be held accountable for what happens to Miss Alders, even if her body turns up face-down in the Thames.
But the gods must be pissing on my grave today because I point at the screen and say to Bethany, “Miss Alders’ debt. I can cover it easily but getting the money from my accounts into hers so she can give it to Damir is a problem. How do I do it?”