Adeline answered before Elias could.
“I think you’re trying very hard to make that matter.”
Rourke was taken outside.
The mansion became silent.
Adeline exhaled.
“Can I ask one question?”
Elias nodded.
“Am I fired?”
He stared at her.
“You stole my bread.”
“It was stale.”
“You stole two apples.”
“They were bruised.”
“The soup?”
“Expiration date.”
Elias considered this.
“You’re a terrible criminal.”
“Thank you.”
Then Elias looked toward the service hallway.
“You’re not fired.”
Adeline smiled.
“Good. Because I need the overtime.”
His expression changed.
“No.”
Her smile vanished.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re not working fourteen-hour shifts anymore.”
“You don’t control my schedule.”
“I own the house.”
“And I own my life.”
Elias almost laughed.
There it was.
The same stubbornness Daniel Hayes had shown beside a burning car.
“Fine,” he said.
“Fine.”
“But we need to discuss Ben.”
Adeline’s expression immediately hardened.
“No charity.”
“I didn’t say charity.”
“You were about to.”
“No. I was about to repay a debt.”
“That’s the same thing with better tailoring.”
Elias smiled.
She was going to be difficult.
THE MAFIA KING WHO HID IN A FUNERAL HEARSE
EVERY ALPHA FAILED TO SUMMON THE MOON GODDESS—THEN SHE CALLED AN OMEGA M...
EVERYONE SAID THE OLD DRAGON WAS TOO WEAK TO STAND—UNTIL A STABLE GIRL F...
Strangely, he realized he liked that.
---
CHAPTER 4
Ben refused Elias’s money.
Exactly as Adeline predicted.
“I’m not a charity case,” he said from his hospital bed two days later.
Elias sat opposite him.
“Your sister said the same thing.”
“She’s smarter than me.”
“Debatable.”
Adeline entered carrying coffee.
“I heard that.”
Ben grinned.
Elias had arranged for a specialist to review Ben’s medical records, but he had done it differently.
Not as a gift.
Baron Holdings had created an employee family medical program covering every member of household staff.
Adeline discovered the truth when twelve other employees received identical benefits.
“You changed your entire company policy because I wouldn’t accept help?” she asked.
“Thirty-seven employees qualified.”
“You are unbelievable.”
“I've been told worse.”
The specialist found that Ben was eligible for a treatment program previously beyond their financial reach.
But that afternoon brought another surprise.
A lawyer arrived carrying a sealed envelope.
Daniel Hayes had once worked at a shipping garage owned by a company connected to Cormac Haverin.
Inside the envelope was a letter Daniel had written shortly before his death.
Adeline read it aloud.
“If anything happens to me, the records are inside the old blue toolbox.”
She stopped.
Ben looked at her.
“We still have that.”
Their father’s battered toolbox sat beneath the kitchen sink in Chelsea.
They returned that evening.
Ben removed the false bottom.
Inside were photographs, shipping numbers and handwritten dates.
Elias examined them.
“These routes are three years old.”
Bruno nodded.
“But the company names are still active.”
Adeline looked at Elias.
“What does it mean?”
“Your father discovered Haverin was using legitimate freight companies to hide stolen cargo and launder money.”
Ben frowned.
“Why didn’t Dad go to the police?”
“He probably intended to.”
Adeline turned over the final photograph.
Words were written on the back.
If Elias Baron ever finds this, tell him saving him wasn't a debt. It was a choice. Tell him to make better ones.
Nobody spoke.