Chapter 7: What DONE Meant
Reeves picked up on the second ring.
"Tell me you have eyes on the estate," I said.
"Two units on the perimeter since nine o'clock.
What happened?"
"Julian made a call twenty minutes ago.
Someone just sent him a message that says DONE.
I don't know what that means and he won't tell me."
A pause.
Keys clicking.
"Hold on."
Julian hadn't moved.
He was watching me with the expression of a man running calculations — how much I knew, how much I could prove, how much time he had left.
"Daniel." Reeves came back on.
"One of my units just flagged a vehicle.
It pulled up to your east gate two minutes ago and then pulled away when they saw the car parked there.
Plates come back to a company called Aldren Courier Services."
"I don't use Aldren."
"I know.
We're running the driver now." Another pause.
"There's something else.
My financial crimes contact flagged a transfer out of the Meridian Private account forty minutes ago.
Significant amount.
Moved to a secondary account we haven't traced yet."
Julian heard the name Meridian Private.
His face went very still.
"They're moving the money," I said.
"They were trying to," Reeves said.
"The transfer is flagged.
It won't clear.
But someone initiated it tonight, which means someone knew tonight was the night things were going to move."
I looked at Julian.
"He called someone when I told him not to," I said.
"And someone was waiting outside my gate."
"We're bringing the vehicle in now.
Driver will be questioned within the hour."
"What about the transfer?"
"Frozen.
Meridian is cooperating.
They don't want the exposure." A brief silence.
"Daniel, we need to move the timeline up.
I had planned for tomorrow morning.
But if they're already liquidating and sending people to the property, we do it tonight."
"How long do you need?"
"Forty-five minutes."
"I'll keep them in the house."
I ended the call and looked at Julian.
He had heard enough.
"It's over," I said.
"You don't know what you've started," he said.
His voice was quiet now, stripped of the performance.
"You think this ends cleanly?
You think Victoria just accepts this?"
"What I think," I said, "is that you just tried to move the money and send someone to my property on the same night I came home.
Which means you panicked.
And panicked people make mistakes."
"I was protecting what we built."
"You were stealing what I built.
There's a difference."
"This family built it.
Not just you.
You were gone, Daniel.
You are always gone.
You leave and you expect everything to hold together and you never think about what it costs the people you leave behind."
Something in his voice cracked on the last sentence.
Just slightly.
"Is that what this was?" I said.
"Resentment?"
He looked away.
"Julian." I waited until he looked back.
"I would have given you anything you asked for.
You know that."
"I know," he said.
And for just a moment — one unguarded moment — he looked like the younger brother I had taught to drive, the one who had called me from a payphone at two in the morning when he was nineteen and in trouble and I had driven four hours without asking a single question.
Then the moment closed.
"Victoria planned most of it," he said quietly.
"I want you to know that.
I went along with things I shouldn't have.
But the transfers, the shell company, Garrett Hale — that was her."
"Garrett Hale."
"She's been working with him for two years.
Before you left.
The plan was already in place before you went to New York.
She was waiting for an opportunity."
"And you let her use Maya."
He didn't answer.
"Julian.
You let her put her hands on Maya."
"I didn't—" He stopped.
Swallowed.
"I didn't know it had gone that far until it already had.
And by then I was in deep enough that saying anything felt impossible."
"So you stayed quiet."
"Yes."
The word sat between us like something broken.
"Where is Garrett Hale right now?" I said.
"I don't know."
"Best guess."
Julian looked at the window.
"He has a place in Annapolis.
He goes there when things get complicated."
I texted the name and city to Reeves.
Then I walked to the door.
"Stay in this room," I said.
"Don't make any more calls.
Don't touch the computer."
"Daniel."
I stopped.
"The baby," Julian said.
"I want you to know — whatever else happened — I never wanted anything to happen to the baby."
I stood in the doorway for a moment.
"That's the lowest possible bar," I said.
May you like
"And you barely cleared it."
I left him there and went to find Victoria.
